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I 


The Editha Series 

For Little Girls 
NEW EDITION, 1913 


1 Editha’ s Burglar 

By Burnett 

2 Pinocchio’s Adventure* 

3 Burglar’s Daughter 

By Penrose 

4 Tamed 

By W. O. Stoddard 

5 Peggy’s Trial 

By Mary Knight Potter 

6 The Little Professor 

By Ida Horton Cash 

7 A Child’s Garden of Verses 

By Stevenson 

8 Little Rosebud 

By Harraden 

9 Simple Susan 

By Maria Edgeworth 

11 The Birthday Present 

By Maria Edgeworth 

13 Adventures of a Brownie 

By Miss Mulock 

14 The Pygmies 

By Hawthorne 

15 The Brownies 

By Ewing 

16 Cuckoo Clock 

By Molesworth 

17 The Sleeping Beauty 

By Martha Baker Dunn 

18 Jackanapes 

By J. H. Ewing 

19 Alice in Wonderland 

By Carroll 

20 Rab and His Friends 

By Dr. John Brown 

21 Through a Looking-Glass 

By Lewis Carroll 

22 The King of the Golden 

River 

By John Ruskin 

23 Snap-Dragons and Other 

Stories 

By J. H. Ewing 

24 Madame Liberality 

By J. H. Ewing 


25 Millicent in Dreamland 

By Edna S. Brainerd 

26 Flower Fables 

By Louisa M. Alcott 

27 Legend of Sleepy Hollow 

By Washington Irving 

28 Lives of Two Cats 

By Pierre Loti 

29 Wonder Box Tales 

By Jean Ingelow 

31 Little Prudy 

By Sophie May 

32 Little Prudy’s Sister Susy 

By Sophie May 

33 Little Prudy’s Captain 

Horace 

By Sophie May 

34 Little Prudy’s Cousin 

Grace 

By Sophie May 

35 Little Prudy’s Story Book 

By Sophie May 

36 Little Prudy’s Dotty 

Dimple 

By Sophie May 

37 Rare Old Chums 

By Will Allen Dromgoole 

38 What Came to Winifred 
By Elizabeth Westyn Timlow 

39 The Rosy Cloud 

By George Sand 

40 Jess „ „ 

By J. M. Barrie 

41 The Grasshopper’s Hop 

By Zitella Cocke 

42 The Story Without End 

By Sarah Austin 

43 Mr. Penwiper’s Fairy 

Godmother 

By Amy Woods 

44 Daddy Joe’s Fiddle 

By Faith Bickford 

45 Gloria 

By Faith Bickford 

46 The Countess of the 

Tenements 

By Etheldred B. Barry 


H. M. CALDWELL COMPANY 

Publishers 

NEW YORK AND BOSTON 
















































T5he 

EDITH A SERIES 


HROU G H 
THE ^ ^ 
LOOKING 
GLASS 


By Lewis Carroll 

Illustrated 




H. M. CALDWELL COc 
PUBLISHER'S ^ ^ ^ 

NEW YORK BOSTON 






S’.rs.rui . - ' £■ 


I 


GONTENT& 


CHAPTER 

PASS 

I. 

Looking- Glass House, . . e 

. 1 

II. 

The Garden of Live Flowers, 

. 22 

III. 

Looking-Glass Insects, 

. 40 

IY. 

Tweedledum and Tweedledee, 

. 58 

Y. 

Wool and Water, 

. 79 

YI. 

Humptt Dumpty, 

. 100 

VII. 

The Lion and the Unicorn, 

. 123 

VIII. 

“It’s My Own Invention/ 

„ 140 

IX. 

Queen Alice, . . * * 

. 165 

X. 

Shaking, . . • > • 

191 

XI. 

Waking . » .> i ® « 

. 193 

XU. 

Which Dreamed I®?, • * 

„ 194 







INTRODTTCTIOtf. 


Child of the pure unclouded brow 
And dreaming eyes of wonder ! 

Though time be fleet, and I and thou 
Are half a life asunder, 

Thy loving smile will surely hail 
The love-gift of a fairy-tale. 

I have not seen thy sunny face, 

Nor heard thy silver laughter ; 

No thought of me shall find a plao# 

In thy young life’s hereafter — 

Enough that now thou wilt not fall 
To listen to my fairy-tale. 

A tale begun in other days, 

When summer suns were glowingw, 

A simple chime, that served to time 
The rhythm of our rowing — 

Whose echoes live in memory yet. 

Though envious years would say “ forget, 
w 


vi 


INTRODUCTION. 


Come, hearken then, ere voice of dread, 
With bitter tidings laden, 

Shall summon to unwelcome bed 
A melancholy maiden! 

We are but older children, dear, 

Who fret to find our bedtime near. 

Without, the frost, the blinding snow, 
The storm-wind’s moody madness— 
Within, the firelight’s ruddy glow 
And childhood’s best of gladness. 

The magic words shall hold thee fast | 
Thou shalt not heed the raving blast. 

And though the shadow of a sigh 
May tremble through the story, 

For “ happy summer days ” gone by. 
And vanish’d summer glory — 

It shall not touch, with breath of bale. 
The pleasance of our fairy-taler 


THROUGH THE LOOKING- 
GLASS. 


CHAPTER I. 

LOOKING-GLASS HOUSE. 

One thing was certain, that the white kitten 
had had nothing to do with it — it was the black 
kitten's fault entirely. For the white kitten had 
been having its face washed by the old cat for 
the last quarter of an hour (and bearing it 
pretty well, considering); so you see that it 
wuldn’t have had any hand in the mischief. 

The way Dinah washed her children's faces 
was this: first she held the poor thing down by 
its ear with one paw, and then with the other 
paw she rubbed its face all over, the wrong 
way, beginning at the nose: and just now, as I 
said, she was hard at work on the white kitten. 


2 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


which was lying quite still and trying to purr — 
no doubt feeling that it was all meant for its 
good. 

But the black kitten had been finished with 
earlier in the afternoon, and so, while Alice was 
sitting curled up in a comer of the great arm- 



chair, half talking to herself and half asleep, 
the kitten had been having a grand game of 
romps with the ball of worsted Alice had been 
trying to wind up, and had been rolling it up 
and down till it had all come undone again, and 
there it was, spread over the hearthrug, all 
knots and tangles, with the kitten running 
after its own tail in the middle. 


LOOKING-GLASS HOUSE. 


“ Oh, you wicked, wicked little thing! ” cried 
Alice, catching up the kitten and giving it a 
little kiss to make it understand that it was in 
disgrace. “ Really, Dinah ought to have taught 
you better manners! You ought , Dinah, you 
know you ought! ” she added, looking reproach- 
fully at the old cat, and speaking in as cross a 
voice as she could manage — and then she 
scrambled back into the armchair, taking the 
kitten and the worsted with her, and began 
winding up the ball again. But she didn’t get 
on very fast, as she was talking all the time, 
sometimes to the kitten, and sometimes to her- 
self. Kitty sat very demurely on her knee, 
pretending to watch the progress of the wind- 
ing, and now and then putting out one paw 
and gently touching the ball, as if it would be 
glad to help if it might. 

“ Do you know what to-morrow is, Kitty? ” 
Alice began. “ You’d have guessed if you’d 
been up in the window with me — only Dinah 
was making you tidy, so you couldn’t. I was 
watching the boys getting in sticks for the bon- 


4 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


fire — and it wants plenty of sticks, Kitty! 
Only it got so cold, and it snowed so, they had 
to leave off. Never mind, Kitty, we’ll go and 
see the bonfire to-morrow.” Here Alice wound 
two or three turns of the worsted round the 
kitten’s neck, just to see how it would look: 
this led to a scramble, in which the ball rolled 
down upon the floor, and yards and yards of it 
got unwound again. 

“ Do you know, I was so angry, Kitty,” Alice 
went on, as soon as they were comfortably set- 
tled again, “when I saw all the mischief you 
had been doing, I was very nearly opening the 
window and putting you out into the snow! 
And you’d have deserved it, you little mis- 
chievous darling! What have you got to say 
for yourself? Now don’t interrupt me!” she 
went on, holding up one finger. “ I’m going 
to tell you all your faults. Number one: you 
squeaked twice while Dinah was washing your 
face this morning. Now you can’t deny it, 
Kitty; I heard you! What’s that you say?” 
(pretending that the kitten was speaking). 


LOOKING-GLASS HOUSE. 


5 


“Her paw went into your eye? Well, that's 
your fault, for keeping your eyes open — if you’d 
shut them tight up, it wouldn’t have happened. 
Now, don’t make any more excuses, hut listen! 
Number two: you pulled Snowdrop away by the 
tail just as I had put down the saucer of milk 
before her! What, you were thirsty, were 
you? How do you know she wasn’t thirsty, 
too? Now for number three: you unwound 
every bit of the worsted while I wasn’t 
looking! 

“ That’s three faults, Kitty, and you’ve not 
been punished for any of them yet. You know 
I’m saving up all your punishments for Wednes- 
day week. Suppose they had saved up all 
my punishments! ” she went on, talking more 
to herself than the kitten. “ What would 
they do at the end of a year? I should he sent 
to prison, I suppose, when the day came. Or 
— let me see — suppose each punishment was to 
be going without a dinner; then, when the 
miserable day came, I should have to go without 
fifty dinners at once! Well, I shouldn’t mind 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


that much! Fd fax rather go without them 
than eat them! 

“ Do you hear the snow against the window 
panes, Kitty? How nice and soft it sounds! 
Just as if someone was kissing the window all 
over outside. I wonder if the snow loves the 
trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? 
And then it covers them up snug, you know, 
with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, ‘ Go to 
sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again/ 
And when they wake up in the summer, Kitty, 
they dress themselves all in green, and dance 
about, — whenever the wind blows, — oh, that’s 
very pretty! ” cried Alice, dropping the ball of 
worsted to clap her hands. “ And I do so wish 
it was true! I’m sure the woods look sleepy in 
the autumn, when the leaves are getting brown. 

“ Kitty, can you play chess? Kow, don’t 
smile, my dear; I’m asking it seriously. Be- 
cause, when we were playing just now, you 
watched just as if you understood it; and when 
I said ‘ Check! ’ you purred! Well, it was a 
nice cheek, Kitty, and really, I might have won, 


LOOKING-GLASS HOUSE. 


7 


if it hadn’t been for that nasty Knight, that 
came wriggling down among my pieces. 

Kitty dear, let’s pretend ” And here I 

wish I could tell you half the things Alice used 
to say, beginning with her favorite phrase, 
“ Let’s pretend.” She had had quite a long 
argument with her sister only the day before — 
all because Alice had begun with, “ Let’s pre- 
tend we’re kings and queens and her sister, 
who liked being very exact, had argued that 
they couldn’t, because there were only two of 
them, and Alice had been reduced at last to 
say, “ Well, you can be one of them then, and 
I’ll be all the rest.” And once she had fright- 
ened her old nurse by shouting suddenly in her 
ear, “ Nurse! Do let’s pretend that I’m a hun- 
gry hyena, and you’re a bone! ” 

But this is taking us away from Alice’s 
speech to the kitten. “Let’s pretend that 
you’re the Red Queen, Kitty! Do you know, 
I think if you sat up and folded your arms, 
you’d look exactly like her. Now do try, 
there’s a dear! ” And Alice got the Red Queen 


8 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


off the table, and set it up before the kitten ad 
a model for it to imitate; however, the thing 
didn’t succeed, principally, Alice said, because 
the kitten wouldn’t fold its arms properly. So, 
to punish it, she held it up to the Looking- 
glass that it might see how sulky it was — “ and 
if you’re not good directly,” she added, “ I’ll 
put you through into Looking-glass House. 
How would you like that ? 

“ Now, if you’ll only attend, Kitty, and not 
talk so much, I’ll tell you all my ideas about 
Looking-glass House. First, there’s the room 
you can see through the glass — that’s just the 
same as our drawing room, only the things go 
the other way. I can see all of it when I get 
upon a chair — all but the bit just behind the 
fireplace. Oh, I do so wish I could see that bit! 
I want so much to know whether they’ve a 
fire in the winter; you never can tell, you know, 
unless our fire smokes, and then smoke comes 
up in that room, too — but that may be only pre- 
tense, just to make it look as if they had a fire* 
Well, then, the books are something like our 


LOOKING-GLASS HOUSE. 


9 


books, only the words go the wrong way; I 
know that, because I 7 ve held up one of our 
books to the glass, and then they hold up one in 
the other room. 

“How would you like to live in Looking- 
glass House, Kitty? I wonder if they’d give 
you milk in there? Perhaps Looking-glass 
milk isn’t good to drink. But oh, Kitty! now 
we come to the passage. You can just see a 
little peep of the passage in Looking-glass 
House, if you leave the door of our drawing 
room wide open; and it’s very like our passage 
as far as you can see, only, you know, it may be 
quite different on beyond. Oh, Kitty! how nice 
it would be if we could only get through into 
Looking-glass House! I’m sure it’s got, oh! 
such beautiful things in it! Let’s pretend 
there’s a way of getting through into it, some- 
how, Kitty. Let’s pretend the glass has got 
all soft like gauze, so that we can get 
through. Why, it’s turning into a sort of mist 
now, I declare! It ’ll be easy enough to get 
through ” She was up on the chimney- 


10 THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 

piece while she said this, though she hardly 
knew how she had got there. And certainly 



the glass was beginning -to melt away, just like 
a bright silvery mist. 

In another moment Alice was through the 
glass, and had jumped lightly down into the 



LOOKING-GLASS HOUSE. 


11 


Looking-glass room. The very first thing she 
did was to look whether there was a fire in the 
fireplace, and she was quite pleased to find that 
there was a real one, blazing away as brightly 
as the one she had left behind. “ So I shall he 
as warm here as I was in the old room,” thought 
Alice; “ warmer, in fact, because there ’ll be no 
one here to scold me away from the fire. Oh, 
what fun it ’ll be, when they see me through 
the glass in here, and can’t get at me! ” 

Then she began looking about, and noticed 
that what could be seen from the old room was 
quite common and uninteresting, but that all 
the rest was as different as possible. For in- 
stance, the pictures on the wall next the fire 
seemed to be all alive, and the very clock on 
the chimney-piece (you know you can only see 
the back of it in the Looking-glass) had got the 
face of a little old man, and grinned at her. 

“ They don’t keep this room so tidy as the 
other,” Alice thought to herself, as she noticed 
several of the chessmen down in the hearth 
among the cinders: but in another moment. 


13 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


with a little “ Oh! ” of surprise, she was down 
on her hands and knees watching them. The 
chessmen were walking about, two and two! 

“Here are the Red King and the Red 
Queen,” Alice said (in a whisper, for fear of 
frightening them), “and there are the White 
King and the White Queen sitting on the edge 
of the shovel — and here are two Castles walk- 
ing arm in arm — I don’t think they can hear 
me,” she went on, as she put her head closer 
down, “ and I’m nearly sure they can’t see me. 
I feel somehow as if I were invisible ” 

Here*something began squeaking on the table 
behind Alice, and made her turn her head just 
in time to see one of the White Pawns roll over 
and begin kicking: she watched it with great 
curiosity to see what would happen next. 

“It is the voice of my child!” the White 
Queen cried out, as she rushed past the King, 
so violently that she knocked him over among 
the cinders. “ My precious Lily! My im- 
perial kitten! ” and she began scrambling wildly 
up the side of the fender. 


LOOKING-GLASS HOUSE. 


13 


“ Imperial fiddlestick! ” said the King, rub- 
bing his nose, which had teen hurt by the fall. 
He had a right to be a little annoyed with the 
Queen, for he was covered with ashes from head 
to foot. 

Alice was very anxious to he of use, and, as 



the poor little Lily was nearly screaming her- 
self into a fit, she hastily picked up the Queen 
and set her on the table by the side of her 
noisy little daughter. 


14 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


The Queen gasped, and sat down; the rapid 
journey through the air had quite taken away 
her breath, and for a minute or two she could 
do nothing but hug the little Lily in silence. 
As soon as she had recovered her breath a little, 
she called out to the White King, who was sit- 
ting sulkily among the ashes, “Mind the 
volcano! ” 

“ What volcano? ” said the King, looking up 
anxiously into the fire, as if he thought that 
was the most likely place to find one. 

“Blew — me — up,” panted the Queen, who 
was still a little out of breath. “ Mind you 
come up — the regular way — don’t get blown 
up!” 

Alice watched the White King as he si iwly 
struggled up from bar to bar, till at last she 
said, “ Why, you’ll be hours and hours getting 
to the table, at that rate. I’d far better help 
you, hadn’t I?” But the King took no no- 
tice of the question; it was quite clear that he 
could neither hear her nor see her. 

So Alice picked him up very gently, 


LOOKING-GLASS HOUSE. 


15 


lifted him across more slowly than she had 
lifted the Queen, that she mightn’t take his 
breath away; hut, before she put him on the 
table, she thought she might as well dust him 
a little, he was so covered with ashes. 

She said afterward that she had never seen 
in all her life such a face as the King made, 
when he found himself held in the air by an in- 
visible hand, and being dusted; he was far too 
much astonished to cry out, but his eyes and 
his month went on getting larger and larger, 
and rounder and rounder, till her hand shook so 
with laughing that she nearly let him drop upon 
the floor. 

u Oh! please don’t make such faces, my 
dear! ” she cried out, quite forgetting that the 
Sang couldn’t hear her. “ You make me 
laugh so that I can hardly hold you! And 
don’t keep your mouth so wide open! All the 
ashes will get into it — there, now I think you’re 
tidy enough! ” she added, as she smoothed 
his hair, and set him upon the table near the 
Queen. 


16 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


The King immediately fell flat on his back, 
and lay perfectly still; and Alice was a little 
alarmed at what she had done, and went round 
the room to see if she could find any water to 
throw over him. However, she could find 
nothing but a bottle of ink, and when she got 
back with it she found he had recovered* and 
he and the Queen were talking together in a 
frightened whisper — so low that Alice <mld 
hardly hear what they said. 

The King was saying, “I assure you my 
dear, I turned cold to the very ends of my 
whiskers! ” 

To which the Queen replied: “ You haven’t 
got any whiskers.” 

“ The horror of that moment,” the King 
went on, “ I shall never, never forget! ” 

“ You will, though,” the Queen said, “ if you 
don’t make a memorandum of it.” 

Alice looked on with great interest as the 
King took an enormous memorandum bo'ok 
out of his pocket, and began writing. v A si d- 
den thought struck her, and she took hold 1 


LOOKING-GLASS HOUSE. 


17 


the end of the pencil, which came some 
way over his shoulder, and began writing for 
him. 

The poor King looked puzzled and un- 
happy, and struggled with the pencil for some 
time without saying anything; hut Alice was 
too strong for him, and, at last, he panted out, 
“ My dear! I really must get a thinner pencil. 
I can’t manage this one a bit; it writes all man- 
ner of things that I don’t intend ” 

“ What manner of things? ” said the Queen, 
looking over the book (in which Alice had put, 
‘ The White Knight is sliding down the poker. 
He balances very badly ’). “ That’s not a memo- 
randum of your feelings! ” 

There was a book lying near Alice on the 
table, and while she sat watching the White 
King (for she was still* a little anxious about 
him, and had the ink all ready to throw over 
him, in case he fainted again), she turned over 
the leaves to find some part that she could 
read, — “for it’s all in some language I don’t 
know,” she said to herself. 


18 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


It was like this: 

jrxDovnmaoAi 

eavoJ ^dlila sdJ baa .gHlhd sawl? 
f ecfow 9di rrisldraig bnc 91^8 bid 
.asvo&oiod 9ilJ 9i9w yemira IIA 
•S&BlsJao eillai gmora 9dJ bnA 

She puzzled over this for some time but, at 
last a bright thought struck her. “ Why, it ? s 
a Looking-glass book, of course! And if I 
hold it up to a glass, the words will all go the 
right way again.” 

This was the poem that Alice read: 

JABBERWOCKY. 

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves 
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe ; 

All mimsy were the borogoves, 

And the mome raths outgrabe. 

“ Beware the Jabberwock, my son ! 

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch I 
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun 
The frumious Bandersnatch I ” 


LOOKING-GLASS HOUSE. 


19 


He took his vorpal sword in hand : 

Long time the manxome foe he sought—® 

80 rested he by the Tumtum tree, 

And stood awhile in thought. 

And as in ufflsh thought he stood, 

The Jabber wock, with eyes of flame, 

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood. 

And burbled as it came 1 

One, two ! One, two ! And through and through 
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack 1 
He left it dead, and with its head 
He went galumphing back. 

** And hast thou slain the Jabberwock ? 

Come to my arms, my beamish boy I 
O frabjous day ! Callooh ! Callay J ” 

He chortled in his joy. 

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves 
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe ; 

All mimsy were the borogoves. 

And the mome raths outgrabe. 

“It seems very pretty,” she said when she 
had finished it; “ but it’s rather hard to under- 
stand! ” (You see she didn’t like to confess, 











■■■ . i i 


gsis ®W) 

mmwm 













LOOKING-GLASS HOUSE. 


n 

even to herself, that she couldn’t make it out at 
all.) “ Somehow it seems to fill my head with 
ideas — only I don’t exactly know what they 
are! However, somebody killed something ; 

that’s clear, at any rate ” 

“ But oh! ” thought Alice, suddenly jump- 
ing up, “ if I don’t make haste I shall have to 
go hack through the Looking-glass, before I’ve 
seen what the rest of the house is like! Let’s 
have a look at the garden first! ” She was out 
of the room in a moment, and ran downstairs — 
or, at least, it wasn’t exactly running, but a new 
invention for getting downstairs quickly and 
easily, as Alice said to herself. She just kept 
the tips of her fingers on the hand-rail, and 
floated gently down without even touching the 
stairs with her feet; then she floated on through 
the hall, and would have gone straight out at 
the door in the same way, if she hadn’t caught 
hold of the door-post. She was getting a little 
giddy, too, with so much floating in the air, and 
was rather glad to find herself walking again in 
the natural way. 


CHAPTER II. 


THE GARDEN OF LIVE FLOWERS. 

"I should see the garden far better,” said 
Alice to herself, “ if I could get to the top of 
that hill: and here’s a path that leads straight 
to it — at least, no, it doesn’t do that,” — after 
going a few yards along the path, and turning 
several sharp comers, — “but I suppose it will 
at last. But how curiously it twists! It’s more 
like a corkscrew than a path! Well, this turn 
goes to the hill, I suppose — no, it doesn’t! 
This goes straight back to the house! Well, 
then, I’ll try it the other way.” 

And so she did: wandering up and down, 
and trying turn after turn, but always coming 
back to the house, do what she would. In- 
deed, once, when she turned a comer rather 
more quickly than usual, she ran against it be- 
fore she could stop herself. 


THE GARDEN OP LIVE FLOWERS. 


23 


€< IV* no use talking about it,” Alice said, 
looking up at the house and pretending it was 
arguing with her. “ Fm not going in again yet. 
I know I should have to get through the Look- 
ing-glass again — back into the old room — and 
there’d be an end of all my adventures! ” 

So, resolutely turning her back upon the 
house, she set out once more down the path, 
determined to keep straight on till she got to 
the hill. For a few minutes all went on well, 
and she was just saying, “ I really shall do it 

this time ” when the path gave a sudden 

twist and shook itself (as she described it after- 
ward), and the next moment she found herself 
actually walking in at the door. 

“ Oh, it's too bad! ” she cried. “ I never saw 
such a house for getting in the way! Never! ” 
However, there was the hill full in sight, so 
there was nothing to be done but start again. 
This time she came upon a large flowerbed, 
with a border of daisies, and a willow tree grow- 
ing in the middle. 

“ Oh, Tiger-lily,” said Alice, addressing her- 


24 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


self to one that was waving gracefully about in 
the wind, “ I wish you could talk! ” 

“We can talk,” said the Tiger-lily: “when 
there’s anybody worth talking to.” 

Alice was so astonished that she couldn’t 
speak for a minute; it quite seemed to take her 
breath away. At length, as the Tiger-lily only 
went on waving about, she spoke again, in a 
timid voice — almost in a whisper. “ And can 
all the flowers talk?” 

“As well as you can,” said the Tiger-lily, 
“ and a great deal louder.” 

“ It isn.’t manners for us to begin, you know,” 
said the Eose, “and I really was wondering 
when you’d speak! Said I to myself, ‘ Her face 
has got some sense in it, though it’s not a clever 
one! ’ Still, you’re the right color, and that 
goes a long way.” 

“I don’t care about the color,” the Tiger- 
lily remarked. “ If only her petals curled up 
a little more, she’d be all right.” 

Alice didn’t like being criticised, so she 
began asking questions. “Aren’t you some- 


THE GARDEN OF LIVE FLOWERS. 


25 


times frightened at being planted out here, 
with nobody to care for you?” 

“ There’s the tree in the middle,” said the 
Eose; “ what else is it good for? ” 

“ But what could it do, if any danger came? " 
Alice asked. 

“ It could hark,” said Eose. 

"It says ‘ Bough-wough! * ” cried a Daisy, 
“ that’s why its branches are called boughs! ” 

“ Didn’t you know that f” cried another 
Daisy, and here they all began shouting to- 
gether, till the air seemed quite full of little 
shrill Yoices. “ Silence, every one of you! ” 
cried the Tiger-lily, waving itself passionately 
from side to side, and trembling with excite- 
ment. “ They know I can’t get at them! ” it 
panted, bending its quivering head toward 
Alice, “ or they wouldn’t dare to do it! ” 

“ Never mind! ” Alice said in a soothing 
tone, and stooping down to the Daisies, who 
were just beginning again, she whispered, 
"If you don’t hold your tongues, I’ll pick 


$6 THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 

There was silence in a moment, and several 
of the pink daisies turned white. 

u That’s right! ” said the Tiger-lily. “ The 
Daisies are the worst of all. When one speaks, 
they all begin together, and it’s enough to make 
one wither to hear the way they go on! ” 

“ How is it you can all talk so nicely? ” Alice 
said, hoping to get it into a better temper by a 
compliment. “ Fve been in many gardens be- 
fore, but none of the flowers could talk.” 

“ Put your hand down, and feel the ground,” 
said the Tiger-lily. “ Then you’ll know why? ” 

Alice did so. "It’s very hard,” she said, 
“but I don’t see what that has to do with 
it.” 

“ In most gardens,” the Tiger-lily said, “ they 
make the beds too soft — so that the flowers are 
always asleep.” 

This sounded a very good reason, and Alice 
was quite pleased to know it. “ I never 
thought of that before! ” she said. 

“ It’s my opinion that you never think at all," 
the Rose said in a rather severe tone. 


THE GARDEN OF LIVE FLOWERS, 


27 


“ I never saw anybody that looked stupider,” 
a Violet said, so suddenly that Alice quite 
jumped; for it hadn’t spoken before. 

“ Hold your tongue! ” cried the Tiger-lily. 
“ As if you ever saw anybody! You keep your 
head under the leaves, and snore away there, 
till you know no more what’s going on in the 
world than if you were a bud! ” 

“Are there any more people in the garden 
besides me? ” Alice said, not choosing to notice 
the Rose’s last remark. 

“ There’s one other flower in the garden that 
can move about like you,” said the Rose. “ I 

wonder how you do it ■” (“You’re always 

wondering,” said the Tiger-lily), “but she’s 
more bushy than you are.” 

“Is she like me?” Alice asked eagerly, for 
the thought crossed her mind, “ There’s an- 
other little girl in the garden somewhere! ” 
“Well, she has the same awkward shape as 
you,” the Rose said, “but she’s redder — and 
her petals are shorter, I think.” 

“ Her petals are done up close, almost like a 


28 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


dahlia / 5 the Tiger-lily interrupted; “ not tum- 
bled about anyhow, like yours / 5 

“ But that 5 s not your fault / 5 the Rose added 
kindly; “ you’re beginning to fade, you know 
— and then one can’t help one’s petals getting 
a little untidy.” 

Alice didn’t like this idea at all: so, to change 
the subject, she asked, “Does she ever come 
out here? ” 

“I dare say you’ll see her soon,” said the 
Rose. “ She’s one of the thorny kind.” 

“Where does she wear the thorns?” Alice 
asked with some curiosity. 

“Why, all round her head, of course,” the 
Rose replied. “I was wondering you hadn’t 
got some, too. I thought it was the regular 
rule.” 

“ She’s coming! ” cried the Larkspur. “ I 
hear her footsteps, thump, thump, along the 
gravel walk! ” 

Alice looked round eagerly, and found that 
it was the Red Queen. “ She’s grown a good 
deal! ” was her first remark. She had indeed: 






30 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


when Alice first found her in the ashes, she had 
been only three inches high — and here she was, 
half a head taller than Alice herself. 

“ It’s the fresh air that does it,” said the 
Rose; “ wonderfully fine air it is out here.” 

“ I think I’ll go and meet her,” said Alice, 
for, though the flowers were interesting enough, 
she felt that it would be far grander to have a 
talk with a real Queen. 

“ You can’t possibly do that,” said the Rose. 
“I should advise you to walk the other way.” 

This sounded nonsense to Alice, so she said 
nothing, but set off at once toward the Red 
Queen. To her surprise, she lost sight of her in 
a moment, and found herself walking in at the 
front door again. 

A little provoked, she drew back, and after 
looking everywhere for the Queen (whom she 
spied out at last a long way off), she thought 
she would try the plan, this time, of walking in 
the opposite direction. 

It succeeded beautifully. She had not been 
walking a minute before she found herself face 


THE GARDEN OF LIVE FLOWERS. 


81 


to face with the Red Queen, and in full sight 
of the hill she had been so long aiming at. 

“ Where do you come from?” said the Red 
Queen. “ And wh'u-e are you going? Look 
up, speak nicely, and don’t twiddle your fingers 
all the time.” 

Alice attended to all these directions, and ex- 
plained, as well as she could, that she had lost 
her way. 

“ I don’t know what you mean by your way,” 
said the Queen; “ all the ways about here belong 
to me — but why did you come out here at all? ” 
she added in a kinder tone. “ Courtesy while 
you’re thinking what to say. It saves time.” 

Alice wondered a little at this, but she was 
too much in awe of the Queen to disbelieve it. 
a I’ll try it when I go home,” she thought to 
herself, “ the next time I’m a little late for 
dinner.” 

“ It ? s time for you to answer now,” the Queen 
said, looking at her watch; “ open your mouth 
a Htiie wider when you speak, and always say, 
4 your Majesty .’ 99 


32 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


“ I only wanted to see what the garden was 

like, your Majesty ” 

“ That’s right/’ said the Queen, patting hei 
on the head, which Alice didn’t like at all; 
“ though, when you say ‘ garden ’ — I’ve seen 
gardens, compared with which this would he a 
wilderness.” 

Alice didn’t dare to argue the point, but went 
on: “ And I thought I’d try and find my way 

to the top of that hill ” 

“ When you say c hill,’ ” the Queen inter- 
rupted, “ I could show you hills, in comparison 
with which you’d call that a valley.” 

“ No, I shouldn’t,” said Alice, surprised into 
contradicting her at last: “a hill can’t he a 
valley, you know. That would he non- 
sense ” 

The Bed Queen shook her head. “ You may 
call it ‘ nonsense,’ if you like,” she said, “ but 
I’ve heard nonsense, compared with which that 
would be as sensible as a dictionary! ” 

Alice courtesied again, as if she was afraid 
from the Queen’s tone that she was a little 


THE GARDEN OF LIVE FLOWERS. 


33 


offended, and they walked on in silence till they 
got to the top of the hill. 

For some minutes Alice stood without speak- 
ing, looking out in all directions over the coun- 
try — and a most curious country it was. There 
were a number of tiny little brooks running 
straight across it from side to side, and the 
ground between was divided up into squares by 
a number of little green hedges, that reached 
from brook to brook. 

“ I declare it’s marked out just like a large 
chessboard! ” Alice said at last. “ There 
ought to be some men moving about somewhere 
— and so there are! ” she added in a tone of de- 
light, and her heart began to beat quick with 
excitement as she went on. “ It’s a great huge 
game of chess that’s being played — all over the 
world — if this is the world at all, you know. 
Oh, what fun it is! How I wish I was one of 
them! I wouldn’t mind being a Pawn, if only 
I might join— though, of course, I should like 
to be a Queen, best.” 

She glanced rather shyly at the' real Queen 


34 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


as she said this, hut her companion only smiled 
pleasantly, and said, “ That’s easily managed. 
You can he the White Queen’s Pawn, if you 
like, as Lily’s too young to play; and you’re in 
the Second Square to begin with; when you get 

to the Eighth Square you’ll be a queen ” 

Just at this moment, somehow or other, they 
began to run. 

Alice never could quite make out, in think- 
ing it over afterward, how it was that they 
began; all she remembers is that they were run- 
ning hand in hand, and the Queen went so fast 
that it was all she could do to keep up with 
her; and still the Queen kept crying, 
"Faster! faster!” but Alice felt she could not 
go faster, though she had no breath left to 
say so. 

The most curious part of the thing was that 
the trees and other things round them never 
changed their places at all; however fast they 
went, they never seemed to pass anything. “ I 
wonder if all the things move along with us? ” 
thought poor puzzled Alice. 


THE GARDEN OF LIVE FLOWERS. 


35 


And the Queen seemed to guess her thoughts, 
for she cried, “ Faster! Don’t try to talk! ” 
Not that Alice had any idea of doing that. 
She felt as if she would never be able to talk 
again, she was getting so much out of breath: 
snd still the Queen cried, “ Faster! faster! ” and 



dragged her along. “ Are we nearly there?” 
Alice managed to pant out at last. 

“ Nearly there?” the Queen repeated. 
“ Why, we passed it ten minutes ago! Faster! ” 
And they ran on for a time in silence, with the 
wind whistling in Alice’s ears, and almost blow- 
ing her hair off her head, she fancied. 

"Now! now!” cried the Queen. “Faster! 


36 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


faster! ” And they went so fast that at last 
they seemed to skim through the air, hardly 
touching the ground with their feet till, sud- 
denly, just as Alice was getting quite exhausted, 
they stopped, and she found herself sitting on 
the ground, breathless and giddy. 

The Queen propped her up against a tree, 
and said kindly, “ You may rest a little now.” 

Alice looked round her in great surprise, 
“ Why, I do believe we’ve been under this tree 
the whole time! Everything’s just as it was! ” 

“ Of course it is,” said the Queen: “ what 
would you have it? ” 

“ Well, in our country,” said Alice, still pant- 
ing a little, “ you’d generally get to somewhere 
else — if you ran very fast for a long time, as 
we’ve been doing.” 

“ A slow sort of country! ” said the Queen. 
"Now, here , you see, it takes all the running 
you can do, to keep in the same place. If you 
want to get somewhere else, you must run at 
least twice as fast as that! ” 

“ I’d rather not try, please! ” said Alice. 


THE GARDEN OP LITE FLOWERS. 37 

<( Pm quite content to stay here-— only I am so 
hot and thirsty! ” 

“ I know what you’d like! ” the Queen said 
good-naturedly, taking a little box out of her 
pocket. “Have a biscuit? ” 

Alice thought it would not be civil to say 
“ No,” though it wasn’t at all what she wanted. 
So she took it, and ate it as well as she could; 
and it was very dry; and she thought she had 
never been so nearly choked in all her life. 

“ While you’re refreshing yourself,” said the 
Queen, “ I’ll just take the measurements.” 
And she took a ribbon out of her pocket, 
marked in inches, and began measuring the 
ground, and sticking little pegs in here and 
there. 

“ At the end of two yards,” she said, putting 
in a peg to mark the distance, “ I shall give 
you your directions — have another biscuit?” 

“No, thank you,” said Alice; “one’s quite 
enough! ” 

“ Thirst quenched, I hope? ” said the Queen. 

Alice did not know what to say to this, but 


38 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


luckily the Queen did not wait for an answer, 
out went on. “At the end of three yards I 
shall repeat them — for fear of your forgetting 

them. At the end of four , I shall say good-by. 
And at the end of five, I shall go! ” 

She had got all the pegs put in by this 
time, and Alice looked on with great interest 
as she returned to the tree, and then began 
slowly walking down the row. 

At the two-yard peg she faced round, and 
said, “A pawn goes two squares in its first 
move, you know. So you’ll go very quickly 
through the Third Square — by railway, I should 
think — and you’ll find yourself in the Fourth 
Square in no time. Well, that square belongs 
to Tweedledum and Tweedledee — the Fifth is 
mostly water — the Sixth belongs to Humpty 
Dumpty. But you make no remark? ” 

“ I — I didn’t know I had to make one — just 

then, ” Alice faltered out. 

“ You should have said,” the Queen went on 
in a tone of grave reproof, “ ‘ It’s extremely 
kind of you to tell me all this ’- — however, we’ll 


THE GARDEN OP LIVE FLOWERS. 39 

suppose it said — the Seventh Square is all for- 
est — however, one of the Knights will show 
you the way — and in the Eighth Square we 
shall be Queens together, and it’s all feasting 
and fun ! 99 Alice got up and courtesied, and 
sat down again. 

At the next peg the Queen turned again, and 
this time she said, “ Speak in French when you 
can’t think of the English for a thing — turn 
out your toes when you walk — and remember 
who you are! 99 She did not wait for Alice to 
courtesy this time, hut walked on quickly to the 
next peg, where she turned for a moment to 
say “ good-by,” and then hurried on to the last. 

How it happened Alice never knew, but ex- 
actly as she came to the last peg, she was gone. 
Whether she vanished into the air, or 
whether she ran quickly into the wood (“ and 
she can run very fast! ” thought Alice), there 
was no way of guessing, but she was gone, and 
Alice began to remember that she was a Pawn, 
and that it would soon be time for her to 


more. 


CHAPTER III. 


LOOKING-GLASS INSECTS. 

Of course the first thing to do was to make 
a grand survey of the country she was going 
to travel through. “ It’s something very like 
learning geography,” thought Alice, as she 
stood on tiptoe in hopes of being able to see 
a little further. “ Principal rivers — there are 
none. Principal mountains — I’m on the only 
one, but I don’t think it’s got any name. 
Principal towns — why, what are those creatures, 
making honey down there? They can’t be 
bees — nobody ever saw bees a mile off, you 

know ” and for some time she stood silent, 

watching one of them that was bustling about 
among the flowers, poking its proboscis into 
them, “Just as if it was a regular bee,” 
thought Alice. 

However, this was anything but a regular bee: 

40 


LOOKING-GLASS INSECTS. 


41 


in fact, it was an elephant — as Alice soon 
found out, though the idea quite took her 
breath away at first. “And what enormous 
flowers they must be! ” was her next idea. 
“ Something like cottages with the roofs taken 
off, and stalks put to them — and what quanti- 
ties of honey they must make! I think Fll go 
down and — no, I won’t go just yet,” she went 
on, checking herself just as she was beginning 
to run down the hill, and trying to find some 
excuse for turning shy so suddenly. “It ’ll 
never do to go down among them without a 
good long branch to brush them away — and 
what fun it ’ll be when they ask me how I liked 
my walk. I shall say — c Oh, I liked it well 
enough’ (here came the favorite little toss 
of the head), ‘only it was so dusty and hot, 
and the elephants did tease so! ’ 

“I think I’ll go down the other way,” she 
said after a pause; “and perhaps I may visit 
the elephants later on. Besides, I do so want 
to get into the Third Square! ” 

So with this excuse she ran down the hill 


4ft THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 

and jumped over the first of the six little 
brooks. 

***** 

“ Tickets, please! ” said the Guard, putting 
bis head in at the window. In a moment 
everybody was holding out a ticket; they were 
about the same size as the people, and quite 
seemed to fill the carriage. 

“ Now then! Show your ticket, child! ” the 
Guard went on, looking angrily at Alice. And 
a great many voices all said together (“ Like the 
chorus of a song,” thought Alice), “ Don’t keep 
him waiting, child! Why, his time is worth 
a thousand pounds a minute! ” 

“ I’m afraid I haven’t got one,” Alice said in 
a frightened tone; “ there wasn’t a ticket-office 
where I came from.” And again the chorus of 
voices went on: “ There wasn’t room for one 
where she came from. The land there is worth 
a thousand pounds an inch! ” 

“ Don’t make excuses,” said the Guard; “ you 
should have bought one from the engine- 
driver.” And once more the chorus of voice® 


LOOKING-GLASS INSECTS. 43 

went on with, “ The man that drives the engine. 
Why, the smoke alone is worth a thousand 
pounds a puff! ” 

Alice thought to herself, “ Then there’s no 
use in speaking.” The voices didn’t join in 



this time, as she hadn’t spoken, but, to her 
great surprise, they all thought in chorus (I hope 
you understand what thinking in chorus means 
— for I must confess that I don’t), “ Better 
say nothing at all. Language is worth a thou- 
sand pounds a word! ” 


44 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


"I shall dream about a thousand pounds 
to-night, I know I shall! ” thought Alice. 

All this time the Guard was looking at her, 
first through a telescope, then through a micro- 
scope, and then through an opera-glass. At last 
he said, “ You’re traveling the wrong way,” and 
shut up the window and went away. 

“ So young a child,” said the gentleman sit- 
ting opposite to her (he was dressed in white 
paper), “ ought to know which way she’s going, 
even if she doesn’t know her own name! ” 

A Goat, that was sitting next to the gentle- 
man in white, shut his eyes and said in a loud 
voice, “ She ought to know her way to the 
ticket-office, even if she doesn’t know her 
alphabet! ” 

There was a Beetle sitting next the Goat 
(it was a very queer carriageful of passengers 
altogether), and, as the rule seemed to be that 
they should all speak in turn, he went on with 
6i She’ll have to go back from here as luggage! ” 
Alice couldn’t see who was sitting beyond 
the Beetle, but a hoarse voice spoke next. 


LOOKING-GLASS INSECTS. 


45 


u Change engines ” it said, and there it 

choked and was obliged to leave off. 

u It sounds like a horse,” Alice thought to 
herself. And an extremely small voice, close 
to her ear, said, “You might make a joke on 
that — something about ‘ horse 5 and ‘ hoarse/ 
you know.” 

Then a very gentle voice in the distance said, 
“ She must be labled ‘ Lass, with care/ you 
know.” 

And after that other voices went on (“ What 
a number of people there are in the carriage! ” 
thought Alice), saying, “ She must go by post, 
as she’s got a head on her.” “ She must be 
sent as a message by the telegraph.” “ She 
must draw the train herself the rest of the way,” 
and so on. 

But the gentleman dressed in white paper 
leaned forward and whispered in her ear, 
“ Never mind what they ail say, my dear, but 
take a return-ticket every time the train stops.” 

“ Indeed I shan't! ” Alice said rather impa- 
tiently. “ I don’t belong to this railway jour- 


43 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


ney at all — I was in a wood just now — and I 
wish I could get back there! ” 

“ You might make a joke on that” said the 
little voice close to her ear; “ something about 
‘ you would if you could/ you know.” 

u Don’t tease so,” said Alice, looking about 
in vain to see where the voice came from; “ if 
you’re so anxious to have a joke made, why 
don’t you make one yourself? ” 

The little voice sighed deeply: it was very 
unhappy, evidently, and Alice would have said 
something pitying to comfort it, “ If it would 
only sigh like other people! ” she thought. But 
this was such a wonderfully small sigh that 
she wouldn’t have heard it at all, if it hadn’t 
come quite close to her ear. The consequence 
of this was that it tickled her ear very much, 
and quite took off her thoughts from the un- 
happiness of the poor little creature. 

“ I know you are a friend,” the little voice 
went on; “ a dear friend, and an old friend. 
And you won’t hurt me, though I am an 
ineect?” 


LOOKING-GLASS INSECTS. 


47 


“ What kind of insect? ” Alice inquired 
a little anxiously. What she really wanted to 
know was whether it could sting or not, but 
she thought this wouldn’t be quite a civil ques- 
tion to ask. 

“ What, then you don’t ” the little voice 

began, when it was drowned by a shrill scream 
from the engine, and everybody jumped up in 
alarm, Alice among the rest. 

The Horse, who had put his head out of the 
window, quietly drew it in and said, “ It’s only 
a brook we have to jump over.” Everybody 
seemed satisfied with this, though Alice felt a 
little nervous at the idea of trains jumping at 
all. “ However, it ’ll take us into the Fourth 
Square, that’s some comfort! ” she said to hen- 
self. In another moment she felt the carriage 
rise straight up into the air, and in her fright 
•he caught at the thing nearest to her hand, 
which happened to be the Goat’s beard. 
***** 

But the beard seemed to melt away as she 
tomched it, and she found herself sitting quietly 


48 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


under some tree — while the Gnat (for that was 
the insect she had been talking to) was balanc- 
ing itself on a twig just over her head, and fan- 
ning her with its wings. 

It certainly was a very large Gnat. “ About 
the size of a chicken/’ Alice thought. Still, 
she couldn’t feel nervous with it, after they had 
been talking together so long. 

“ then you don’t like all insects?” the 

Gnat went on, as quietly as if nothing had 
happened. 

“ I like them when they can talk,” Alice said. 
“None of them ever talk, where I come 
from.” 

“ What sort of insects do you rejoice in, 
where you come from?” the Gnat inquired. 

“ I don’t rejoice in insects at all,” Alice ex- 
plained, “ because I’m rather afraid of them — 
at least the large kinds. But I can tell you the 
names of some of them.” 

“ Of course they answer to their names? ” 
the Gnat remarked carelessly. 

“ I never knew them do it.”. 


LOOKING-GLASS INSECTS. 


49 


“ What’s the use of their having names/’ the 
Gnat said, “ if they won’t answer to them?” 

“No use to them” said Alice; “ hut it’s use- 
ful to the people that name them, I suppose. 
If not, why do things have names at all? ” 

“ I can’t say,” the Gnat replied. “ Further 
on, in the wood down there, they’ve got no 
names — however, go on with your list of in- 
sects; you’re wasting time.” 

“ Well, there’s the Horse-fly,” Alice began, 
counting off the names on her fingers. 

“ All right,” said the Gnat: “ halfway up 
that hush, you’ll see a Rocking-horse-fly, if you 
look. It’s made entirely of wood, and gets about 
by swinging itself from branch to branch.” 

“What does it live on?” Alice asked, with 
great curiosity. 

“ Sap and sawdust,” said the Gnat. “ Go on 
with the list.” 

Alice looked at the Rocking-horse-fly with 
great interest, and made up her mind that it 
must have been just repainted, it looked so 
bright and sticky; and then she went on: 


THRLUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


50 


"And there’s the Dragon-fly.” 

"Look on that branch above your head,” 
said the Gnat, " and there you’ll find a Snap- 
dragon-fly. Its body is made of plum-pud- 
ding, its wings of holly leaves, and its head is a 
raisin burning in brandy.” 

" And what does it live on? ” Alice asked, as 
before. 

"Frumenty and mince pie,” the Gnat re- 
plied; "and it makes its nest in a Christmas 
box.” 

" And then there’s the Butterfly,” Alice went 
on, after she had taken a good look at the insect 
with its head on fire, and had thought to her- 
self, " I wonder if that’s the reason insects axe 
so fond of flying into candles — because they 
want to turn into Snap-dragon-flies!” 

"Crawling at your feet,” said the Gnat 
(Alice drew her feet back in some alarm), " you 
may observe a Bread-and-butter-fly. Its wings 
are thin slices of bread and butter, its body is 
a crust, and its head is a lump of sugar.” 

" And what does it live on? ” 


LOOKING-GLASS INSECTS. 


51 


* Weak tea with, cream in it.” 

A new difficulty came into Alice’s head. 
"Supposing it couldn’t find any?” she sug- 
gested. 

“ Then it would die, of course.” 

"But that must happen very often,” Alice 
remarked thoughtfully. 

“ It always happens,” said the Gnat. 

After this Alice was silent for a minute or 
two, pondering. The Gnat amused itself mean- 
while by humming round and round her head; 
at last it settled again and remarked, “ I sup- 
pose you don’t want to lose your name? ” 

“ No, indeed,” Alice said, a little anxiously. 

“ And yet I don’t know,” the Gnat went on 
in a careless tone; “ only think how convenient 
it would be if you could manage to go home 
without it! For instance, if the governess 
wanted to call you to your lessons, she would 

call out, * Come here ,’ and there she 

would have to leave off, because there wouldn’t 
be any name for her to call, and cf course you 
wouldn’t have to go, you know.” 


52 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


“ That would never do, I’m sure/’ said Alice; 
“the governess would never think of excusing 
me lessons for that. If she couldn’t remember 
my name, she’d call me ‘ Miss ! ’ as the serv- 
ants do.” 

“ Well, if she said ‘ Miss,’ and didn’t say any- 
thing more,” the Gnat remarked, “of course 
you’d miss your lessons. That’s a joke. I wish 
you had made it.” 

“ Why do you wish I had made it? ” Alice 
asked. “ It’s a very bad one.” 

But the Gnat only sighed deeply, while two 
large tears came rolling down its cheeks. 

“You shouldn’t make jokes,” Alice said, “if 
it makes you so unhappy.” 

Then came another of those melancholy little 
sighs, and this time the poor Gnat really seemed 
to have sighed itself away, for, when Alice 
looked up, there was nothing whatever to be 
seen on the twig, and, as she was getting quite 
chilly with sitting still so long, she got up and 
walked on. 

She very soon came to an open field, with a 


LOOKING-GLASS INSECTS. 


53 


wood on the other side of it; it looked much 
darker than the last wood, and Alice felt a 
little timid about going into it. However, on 
second thoughts, she made up her mind to go 
on: “ for I certainly won’t go back,” she thought 
to herself, and this was the only way to the 
Eighth Square. 

“ This must be the wood,” she said thought- 
fully to herself, “ where things have no names. 
1 wonder what ’ll become of my name when I 
go in? I shouldn’t like to lose it at all — be- 
cause they’d have to give me another, and it 
would be almost certain to be an ugly one. But 
then the fun would be, trying to find the crea- 
ture that had got my old name! That’s just 
like the advertisements, you know, when peo- 
ple lose dogs — ‘ answers to the name of “ Dash;” 
had on a brass collar ’ — just fancy calling every- 
thing you met ‘ Alice,’ till one of them an- 
swered! Only they wouldn’t answer at all, if 
they were wise.” 

She was rambling on in this way when she 
reached the wood; it looked very cool and 


54 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


shady. “Well, at any rate it’s a great com- 
fort,” she said as she stepped under the trees, 
“after being so hot, to get into the — into the — 
into what ?” she went on, rather surprised at not 
being able to think of the word. “ I mean to 
get under the — under the — under this , you 
know! ” putting her hand on the trunk of the 
tree. “What does it call itself, I wonder? I 
do believe it’s got no name — why, to be sure it 
hasn’t! ” 

She stood silent for a minute, thinking: then 
she suddenly began again. “ Then it really has 
happened, after all! And now, who am I? I 
mil remember, if I can! I’m determined to 
do it! ” But being determined didn’t help her 
much, and all she could say, after a great deal 
of puzzling, was, “L, I know it begins with 
L!” 

Just then a Fawn came wandering by; it 
looked at Alice with its large, gentle eyes, hut 
didn’t seem at all frightened. “Here then! 
Hare then! ” Alice said as she held out her 
hand and tried to stroke it; but it only started 


LOOKING-GLASS INSECTS. &6 

back a little, and then stood looking at her 
again. 

“ What do you call yourself? ” the Fawn said 
at last. Such a soft, sweet voice it had! 

“ I wish I knew! ” thought poor Alice. She 
answered, rather sadly, “ Nothing just now.” 

“ Think again,” it said; “ that won’t do.” 

Alice thought, hut nothing came of it. 
“ Please, would you tell me what you call your- 
self?” she said timidly. “I think that might 
help a little.” 

“ I’ll tell you, if you’ll come a little fur- 
ther on,” the Fawn said. “ I can’t remember 
here.” 

So they walked on together through the 
wood, Alice with her arms clasped lovingly 
round the soft neck of the Fawn, till they 
came out into another open field, and here the 
Fawn gave a sudden bound into the air, and 
shook itself free from Alice’s arms. “ I’m a 
Fawn! ” it cried out in a voico of delight, “ and, 
dear me! you’re a human child! ” A sudden 
look of alarm came into its beautiful brown 


*6 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


eyes, and in another moment it had darted 
away at full speed. 

Alice stood looking after it, almost ready to 
cry with vexation at having lost her dear little 
fellow-traveler so suddenly. “ However, I 
kno.w my name now,” she said, “that’s some 
eomfort. Alice — Alice — I won’t forget it 
again. And now, which of these finger-posts 
ought I to follow, I wonder? ” 

It was not a very difficult question to an- 
swer, as there was only one road through the 
wood, and the two finger-posts both pointed 
along it. “ I’ll settle it,” Alice said to herself, 
“when the road divides and they point in 
different ways.” 

But this did not seem likely to happen. She 
went on and on, a long way, but wherever the 
road divided there was sure to be two finger- 
posts pointing the same way, one marked, “ TO 
TWEEDLEDUM’S HOUSE,” and the other 
“ TO THE HOUSE OF TWEEDLEDEE.” 

“ I do believe,” said Alice at last, “ that they 
live in the same house! I wonder I never 


LOOKING-GLASS INSECTS. 57 

thought of that before. But I can’t stay there 
long. I’ll just call and say ‘How d’ye do?’ 
and ask them the way out of the wood. If I' 
could only get to the Eighth Square before it 
gets dark! ” So she wandered on, talking to 
herself as she went, till, on turning a sharp cor- 
ner, she came upon two fat little men, so sud- 
denly that she could not help starting back, but 
in another moment she recovered herself, feel- 
ing sure that they must be 

* * • « ft 


CHAPTER IV. 

TWEEDLEDUM AND TWEEDLEDEE. 

They were standing under a tree, each with 
an arm around the other’s neck, and Alice knew 
which was which in a moment, because one of 
them had “ DUM ” embroidered on his collar, 
and the other “DEE.” “I suppose they’ve 
each got ‘TWEEDLE’ round at the back of 
the collar,” she said to herself. 

They stood so still that she quite forgot they 
were alive, and she was just looking round to 
see if the word “ TWEEDLE ” was written at 
the back of each collar, when she was startled 
by a voice coming from the one marked 
“DUM.” 

“If you think we’re waxworks,” he said, 
“you ought to pay, you know. Waxworks 

58 


TWEEDLEDUM AND TWEEDLEDEE. 59 


weren’t made to be looked at for nothing. 
Nohow! ” 

“ Contrariwise,” added the one marked 
“DEE,” “if you think we’re alive, you ought 
to speak.” 

“ I’m sure I’m very sorry,” was all Alice could 
say; for the words of the old song kept ringing 
through her head like the ticking of a clock, and 
she could hardly help saying them out loud: 

“ Tweedledum and Tweedledee 
Agreed to have a battle ; 

For Tweedledum said Tweedledee 
Had spoiled his nice new rattle. 

** Just then flew down a monstrous crow. 

As black as a tar barrel 
Which frightened both the heroes so. 

They quite forgot their quarrel.” 

“I know what you’re thinking about,” said 
Tweedledum: “ but it isn’t so, nohow.” 

“Contrariwise,” continued Tweedledee, “if 
it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would 
be; but as it isn’t, it aint. That’s logic.” 

“I was thinking,” Alice said very politely, 


60 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


"which is the best way out of this wood: itfs 
getting so dark. Would you tell me, please? ” 
But the fat little men only looked at each 
other and grinned. 

They looked so exactly like a couple of great 



schoolboys that Alice couldn’t help pointing 
her finger at Tweedledum, and saying, "First 
Boy! ” 

“ Nohow! ” Tweedledum cried out briskly, 
and shut his mouth up again with a snap. 

"Next Boy! ” said Alice, passing on to Twee- 


TWEEDLEDUM AND TWEEDLEDEE. 


61 


dledee, though she felt quite certain he would 
only shout out, “ Contrariwise! ” and so he did. 

“ You’ve begun wrong! ” cried Tweedledum. 
“ The first thing in a visit is to say * How d’ye 
do? ’ and shake hands ! 99 And here the two 
brothers gave each other a hug, and then they 
held out the two hands that were free, to shake 
hands with her. 

Alice did not like shaking hands with either 
of them first, for fear of hurting the other one’s 
feelings; so, as the best way out of the diffi- 
culty, she took hold of both hands at once; the 
next moment they were dancing round in a 
ring. This seemed quite natural (she remem- 
bered afterward), and she was not even sur- 
prised to hear music playing: it seemed to come 
from the tree under which they were dancing, 
and it was done (as well as she could make it 
out) by the branches rubbing one across the 
other, like fiddles and fiddle-sticks. 

“ But it certainly was funny,” (Alice said 
afterward, when she was telling her sister the 
history of all this), “to find myself singing 


62 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


e Here we go round the mulberry lush .’ I don’t 
know when I began it, but somehow I felt as if 
I’d been singing it a long, long time! ” 

The other two dancers were fat, and very 
soon out of breath. “Four times round is 
enough for one dance,” Tweedledum panted 
out, and they left off dancing as suddenly as 
they had begun: the music stopped at the same 
moment. 

Then they let go of Alice’s hands, and stood 
looking at her for a minute; there was a rather 
awkward pause, as Alice didn’t know how to 
begin a conversation with people she had just 
been dancing with. “ It would never do to say, 
‘ How d’ye do? ’ now,” she said to herself; “ we 
seem to have got beyond that, somehow! ” 

“I hope you’re not much tired?” she said 
at last. 

“Nohow. And thank you very much for 
asking,” said Tweedledum. 

“ So much obliged! ” added Tweedledee. 
te You like poetry? ” 

“ Ye-es, pretty well — some poetry,” Alice 


TWEEDLEDUM AND TWEEDLEDEE. 63 

said doubtfully. “ Would you tell me which 
road leads out of the wood?” 

“What shall I repeat to her?” said Twee- 
dledee, looking round at Tweedledum with 
great solemn eyes, and not noticing Alice’s 
question. 

“ 4 The Walrus and the Carpenter ’ is the 
longest/’ Tweedledum replied, giving his 
brother an affectionate hug. 

Tweedledee began instantly: 

“The sun was shining ” 

Here Alice ventured to interrupt him. “If 
it’s very long,” she said, as politely as she 
could, “ would you please tell me first which 
road ” 

Tweedledee smiled gently, and began again: 

“ The sun was shining on the sea, 

Shining with all his might : 

He did his very best to make 
The billows smooth and bright— 

And this was odd, because it waa 
The middle of the night. 


64 


THBOUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


“ The moon was shining sulkily, 
Because she thought the sun 
Had got no business to be there 
After the day was done — 

* It’s very rude of him,’ she said, 

* To come and spoil the fun I * 

u The sea was wet as wet could be, 
The sands were dry as dry. 

You could not see a cloud, because 
No cloud was in the sky : 

No birds were flying overhead — 
There were no birds to fly. 

“ The Walrus and the Carpenter 
Were walking close at hand ; 
They wept like anything to see 
Such quantities of sand : 

* If this were only cleared away,® 

They said, * it would be grand 1* 

*** If seven maids with seven mops 
Swept it for half a year, 

Do you suppose,’ the Walrus said, 
'That they could get it clear ?' 
•J doubt it,’ said the Carpenter, 
And shed a bitter tear. 


TWEEDLEDUM AND TWEEDLEDEE. 


65 


9e * O Oysters, come and walk with ufl ! * 

The Walrus did beseech. 

* A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk. 

Along the briny beach : 

We cannot do with more than four, 

To give a hand to each.’ 

** The eldest Oyster looked at him, 

But never a word he said : 

The eldest Oyster winked his eye, 

And shook his heavy head — 

Meaning to say he did not choose 
To leave the oyster-bed. 

“But four young Oysters hurried up, 

All eager for the treat : 

Their coats were brushed, their faces washed. 
Their shoes were clean and neat — 

And this was odd, because, you know, 

They hadn't any feet. 

* Four other Oysters followed them, 

And yet another four ; 

And thick and fast they came at last, 

And more, and more, and more — 

All hopping through the frothy wave*, 

And scrambling to the shore. 


66 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


" The Walrus aud the Carpenter 
Walked on a mile or so, 

And then they rested on a rock 
Conveniently low : 

And all the little Oysters stood 
And waited in a row. 

•• 4 The time has come,’ the Walrus said, 

* To talk of many things : 

Of shoes— and ships— and sealing wax — 
Of cabbages— and kings — 

And why the sea is boiling hot— 

And whether pigs have wings/ 

99 * But wait a bit/ the Oysters cried, 

* Before we have our chat ; 

For some of us are out of breath, 

And all of us are fat ! * 

• No hurry ! ’ said the Carpenter. 

They thanked him much for that 

* A loaf of bread/ the Walrus said, 

6 Is what we chiefly need : 

Pepper and vinegar besides 
Are very good indeed — 

Now, if you’re ready, Oysters dear, 

We can begin to feed/ 


Tweedledum and tweedledee. 


67 


** * But not onus!’ the Oysters cried. 
Turning a little blue. 

'After such kindness, that wouM be 
A dismal thing to do ! ’ 

' The night is fine,’ the Walrus said, 

' Do you admire the view ? 

' It was so kind of you to come I 
And you are very nice I * 

The Carpenter said nothing but, 

' Cut us another slice : 

I wish you were not quite so deaf— 
I’ve had to ask you twice ! ’ 

* 9 It seems a shame/ the Walrus said, 

* To play them such a trick, 

After we’ve brought them out so far., 
And made them trot so quick I * 
The Carpenter said nothing but, 

‘ The butter’s spread too thick l’ 

• I weep for you/ the Walrus said ; 

'I deeply sympathize/ 

With sobs and tears he sorted out 
Those of the largest size, 

Holding his pocket-handkerchief 
Before his streaming eyes. 


68 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


‘ O Oysters,’ said the Carpenter, 

* You’ve had a pleasant run ! 

Shall we be trotting home again ? * 

But answer came there none — 

And this was scarcely odd, because 
They’d eaten every one.” 

“ I like the walrus best,” said Alice; “ be- 
cause you see he was a little sorry for the poor 
oysters.” 

“ He ate more than the Carpenter, though ” 
said Tweedledee. “ You see he held his hand- 
kerchief in front, so that the Carpenter couldn’t 
count how many he took; contrariwise.” 

“ That was mean! ” Alice said indignantly. 
“ Then I like the Carpenter best — if he didn’t 
eat so many as the Walrus.” 

“ But he ate as many as he could get,” said 
Tweedledum. 

This was a puzzler. After a pause, Alice be- 
gan, “Well! They were loth very unpleasant 

characters ” Here she checked herself in 

some alarm, at hearing something that sounded 
to her like the puffing of a large steam-engine 


TWEEDLEDUM AND TWEEDLEDEE. 69 

in the wood near them, though she feared it 
was more likely to be a wild beast. “ Are there 
any lions or tigers about here? ” she asked 
timidly. 

“ It’s only the Red King snoring,” said Twee- 
dledee. 

“ Come and look at him! ” the brothers cried, 
and they each took one of Alice’s hands, and 
led her up to where the King was sleeping. 

“ Isn’t he a lovely sight? ” said Tweedledum. 

Alice couldn’t say honestly that he was. He 
had a tall red night-cap on, with a tassel, and 
he was lying crumpled up into a sort of untidy 
heap, and snoring loud — “ fit to snore his head 
off ! ” as Tweedledum remarked. 

“I’m afraid he’ll catch cold with lying on 
the damp grass,” said Alice, who was a very 
thoughtful little girl. 

“ He’s dreaming now,” said Tweedledee; 
“ and what do you think he’s dreaming about? ” 

Alice said “ Nobody can guess that.” 

“Why, about you!” Tweedledee exclaimed, 
clapping his hands triumphantly. “ And if he 


10 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


left off dreaming about you, where do you sup- 
pose you’d be? ” 

" Where I am now, of course,” said Alice. 

" Not you! ” Tweedledee retorted contemptu- 
ously. " You’d be nowhere. Why, you’re only 
a sort of thing in his dream! ” 

" If that there King was to wake,” added 
Tweedledum, " you’d go out — bang! — just like 
a candle! ” 

" I shouldn’t! ” Alice exclaimed indignantly. 
"Besides, if Pm only a sort of thing in 
his dream, what are you, I should like to 
know? ” 

"Ditto,” said Tweedledum. 

" Ditto, ditto! ” cried Tweedledee. 

He shouted this so loud that Alice couldn’t 
help saying, "Hush! You’ll be waking him, 
I’m afraid, if you make so much noise.” 

" Well, it’s no use your talking about waking 
him,” said Tweedledum, " when you’re only one 
of the things in his dream. You know very 
well you’re not real.” 

" I am real! ” said Alice, and began to ciy. 


TWEEDLEDUM AND TWEEDLEDEE. *Jl 


“You won’t make yourself a bit realler by 
crying,” Tweedledee remarked; “there’s noth- 
ing to cry about.” 

“ If I wasn’t real,” Alice said, — half laughing 
through her tears, it all seemed so ridiculous, — 
“ I shouldn’t be able to cry.” 

“I hope you don’t suppose those are real 
tears?” Tweedledum interrupted in a tone of 
great contempt. 

“I know they’re talking nonsense,” Alice 
thought to herself; “and it’s foolish to cry 
about it.” So she brushed away her tears, and 
went on as cheerfully as she could, “At any 
rate I’d better be getting out of the wood, for 
really it’s coming on very dark. Do you think 
it’s going to rain? ” 

Tweedledum spread a large umbrella over 
himself and his brother, and looked up into 
it. “No, I don’t think it is,” he said; “at 
least — not under here. Nohow.” 

“ But it may rain outside f ” 

“It may — if it chooses,” said Tweedledee; 
“ we’ve no objection. Contrariwise.” 


72 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


" Selfish, things! ” thought Alice, and she 
was just going to say “ Good-night ” and leave 
them, when Tweedledum sprang out from un- 
der the umbrella, and seized her by the wrist. 

“ Do you see that ? 99 he said, in a voice chok- 
ing with passion, and his eyes grew large and 
yellow all in a moment, as he pointed with a 
trembling finger at a small white thing lying 
under the tree. 

“ It’s only a rattle,” Alice said, after a care- 
ful examination of the little white thing. 
"Not a rattl e-snake, you know,” she added 
hastily, thinking that he was frightened; “ only 
an old rattle — quite old and broken.” 

“ I knew it was! ” cried Tweedledum, be- 
ginning to stamp about wildly and tear his 
hair. “It’s spoilt, of course!” Here he 
looked at Tweedledee, who immediately sat 
down on the ground and tried to hide himself 
under the umbrella. 

Alice laid her hand upon his arm, and said 
in a soothing tone, “ You needn’t be so angry 
about an old rattle.” 


TWEEDLEDUM AND TWEEDLEDEE. 73 

H But it isn’t old! ” Tweedledum cried, in a 
greater fury than ever. “ It’s new, I tell you 
— I bought it yesterday — my nice new 
RATTLE!” and his voice rose to a perfect 
scream. 

All this time Tweedledee was trying his best 
to fold up the umbrella, with himself in it; 
which was such an extraordinary thing to do 
that it quite took off Alice’s attention from the 
angry brother. But he couldn’t quite succeed, 
and it ended in his rolling over, bundled up 
in the umbrella, with only his head out; and 
there he lay, opening and shutting his mouth 
and his large eyes — “ looking more like a fish 
than anything else,” Alice thought. 

“ Of course you agree to have a battle? ” 
Tweedledum said in a calmer tone. 

“ I suppose so,” the other sulkily replied, as 
he crawled out of the umbrella; “ only she must 
help us to dress up, you know.” 

So the two brothers went off hand-in-hand 
into the wood, and returned, in a minute, with 
their arms full of things — such as bolsters, blan- 


74 THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 

kets, hearthrugs, tablecloths, dish-covers, and 
coal-scuttles. “I hope you’re a good hand at 
pinning and tying strings?” Tweedledum re- 
marked. “ Every one of these things has got 
to go on, somehow or other.” 

Alice said afterward she had never seen such 
a fuss made about anything in all her life — the 
way those two bustled about, and the quantity 
of things they put on, and the trouble they 
gave her in tying strings and fastening buttons, 
— “ really they’ll be more like bundles of old 
clothes than anything else, by the time they’re 
ready! ” she said to herself, as she arranged a 
bolster round the neck of Tweedledee, “ to keep 
his head from being cut off,” as he said. 

“You know,” he added very gravely, “it’s 
one of the most serious things that can possi- 
bly happen to one in a battle, to get one’s head 
cut off.” 

Alice laughed loud; but she managed to 
turn it into a cough, for fear of hurting his 
feelings. 

“Do I look very pale?” said Tweedledum, 


TWEEDLEDUM AND TWEEDLEDEE. 15 

coming up to have his helmet tried on. (He 
called it a helmet, though it certainly looked 
much more like a saucepan.) 

“Well — yes — a little” Alice replied gently. 

“ Fm very brave generally,” he went on in a 
low voice; “only to-day I happen to have a 
headache.” 

“ And I’ve got a toothache! ” said Tweedle- 
dee, who had overheard the remark. “ Fm far 
worse than you! ” 

“Then you’d better not fight to-day,” said 
Alice, thinking it a good opportunity to make 
peace. 

“We must have a bit of a fight, but I don’t 
care about going on long,” said Tweedledum. 
“ What’s the time now? ” 

Tweedledee looked at his watch, and said, 
“Half -past four.” 

“ Let’s fight till six, and then have dinner,” 
said Tweedledum. 

“Very well,” the other said, rather sadly; 
“ and she can watch us — only you’d better not 
come very close,” he added; “I generally hit 


1 6 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


everything I can see — when I get really 
excited.” 

“And I hit everything within reach,” cried 
Tweedledum, “ whether I can see it or not! ” 

Alice laughed. “You must hit the trees 
pretty often, I should think,” she said. 

Tweedledum looked round him with a satis- 
fied smile. “ I don’t suppose,” he said, “ there 
’ll he a tree left standing, for ever so far round, 
by the time we’ve finished! ” 

“And all about a rattle!” said Alice, still 
hoping to make them a little ashamed of fight- 
ing for such a trifle. 

“ I shouldn’t have minded it so much,” said 
Tweedledum, “ if it hadn’t been a new one.” 

“ I wish the monstrous crow would come! ” 
thought Alice. 

“ There’s only one sword, you know,” Twee- 
dledum said to his brother; “ but you can have 
the umbrella — it’s quite as sharp. Only we 
must begin quick. It’s getting as dark as it 
can.” 

“And darker,” said Tweedledee. 


TWEEDLEDUM AND TWEEDLEDEE. 77 


It was getting dark so suddenly that Alice 
thought there must be a thunderstorm com- 
ing on. “ What a thick, black cloud that is! ” 



she said. “And how fast it comes! Why, I 
do believe it*s got wings! ” 

“ It’s the crow! ” Tweedledum cried out in a 
shrill voice of alarm; and the two brothers took 
to their heels and were out of sight in a 
moment. 

Alice ran a little way into the wood, and 
stopped under a large tree. “ It can never get 


7a 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


at me here ” she thought; “ it’s far too large to 
squeeze itself in among the trees. But I wish 
it wouldn’t flap its wings so — it makes quite a 
hurricane in the wood — here’s somebody’s shawl 
being blown awaarf M 


CHAPTER V. 


WOOL AND WATER. 

She caught the shawl as she spoke, and 
looked about for the owner. In another mo- 
ment the White Queen came running wildly 
through the wood, with both arms stretched out 
wide, as if she were flying; and Alice very civilly 
went to meet her with the shawl. 

“ I’m very glad I happened to be in the way,” 
Alice said, as she helped her to put on her shawl 
again. 

The White Queen only looked at her in a 
helpless, frightened sort of way, and kept re- 
peating something in a whisper to herself that 
sounded like “ Bread and butter, bread and 
butter,” and Alice felt that, if there was to be 
any conversation at all, she must manage it her- 

T9 


80 


THROUGH THE LOOKING GLAPS. 


self. So she began rather timidly: “Am I 
addressing the White Queen?” 

“ Well, yes; if you call that a-dressing,” the 



Queen said. “ It isn’t my notion of the thing, 
at all.” 

Alice thought it would never do to have an 


WOOL AND WATEB. 


81 


argument at the very beginning of their con- 
versation, so she smiled and said, “ If your 
Majesty will only tell me the right way to be- 
gin, I’ll do it as well as I can” 

“ But I don’t want it done at all! ” groaned 
the poor Queen. “ I’ve been a-dressing my- 
self for the last two hours.” 

It would have been all the better, as it 
seemed to Alice, if she had got someone else to 
dress her, she was so dreadfully untidy. “Every 
single thing’s crooked,” Alice thought to 
herself, “ and she’s all over pins! May I 
put your shawl straight for you? ” she added 
aloud. 

“ I don’t know what’s the matter with it! ” 
the Queen said in a melancholy voice. “It’s 
out of temper, I think. I’ve pinned it here, 
and I’ve pinned it there, but there’s no pleas- 
ing it! ” 

“ It can’t go straight, you know, if you pin 
it all on one side,” Alice said, as she gently 
put it right for her; “ and, dear me, what a state 
your hair is in! ” 


82 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


“ The brush has got entangled in it! ” the 
Queen said with a sigh. “ And I lost the comb 
yesterday.” 

Alice carefully released the brush, and did 
her best to get the hair into order. “ Come, 
you look rather better now! ” she said, after 
altering most of the pins. “ But really you. 
should have a lady’s maid! ” 

“ I’m sure I’ll take you with pleasure! ” the 
Queen said. “ Twopence a week, and jam 
every other day.” 

Alice couldn’t help laughing, as she said, 
* I don’t want you to hire me — and I don’t cars 
for jam.” 

“ It’s very good jam,” said the Queen. 

“ Well, I don’t want any to-day , at any 
rate.” 

“ You couldn’t have it if you did want it,” 
the Queen said. “ The rule is, jam to-morrow 
and jam yesterday — but never jam to-day.” 

“ It must come sometimes to € jam to-day/ ” 
Alice objected. 

“No, it can’t,” said the Queen. “It’s jam 


WOOL AND WATER. 


83 


©very other day; to-day isn’t any other day, you 
know.” 

“ I don’t understand you,” said Alice. “ It’s 
dreadfully confusing! ” 

“ That’s the effect of living backwards,” the 
Queen said kindly; “ it always makes one a lit- 
tle giddy first ” 

“ Living backwards! ” Alice repeated in great 
astonishment. “ I never heard of such a 
thing! ” 

“ — but there’s one great advantage in it, that 
one’s memory works both ways.” 

“ I’m sure mine only works one way,” Alice 
remarked. “ I can’t remember things before 
they happen.” 

“ It’s a poor sort of memory that only works 
backward,” the Queen remarked. 

“What sort of things do you remember 
best?” Alice ventured to ask. 

“Oh, things that happen the week after 
next,” the Queen replied in a careless tone. 
“For instance, now,” she went on, sticking a 
large piece of plaster on her finger as she spoke. 


84 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


“ there’s the King’s Messenger. He’ s in prison 
now, being punished; and the trial doesn’t even 
begin till next Wednesday; and, of course, the 
crime comes last of all.” 

“ Suppose he never commits the crime? ” 
said Alice. 

“ That would be all the better, wouldn’t it? ” 
the Queen said, as she bound the plaster round 
her finger with a bit of ribbon. 

Alice felt there was no denying that. “ Of 
course it would be all the better,” she said; 
“but it wouldn’t be all the better his being 
punished.” 

“ You’re wrong there, at any rate,” said the 
Queen. “Were you ever punished?” 

“ Only for faults,” said Alice. 

“And you were all the better for it, 1 
know! ” the Queen said triumphantly. 

“ Yes, but then I had done the things I was 
punished for,” said Alice; “that makes all the 
difference.” 

“ But if you hadn’t done them,” the Queen 
said, “that would have been better still; bet- 


WOOL AND WATER. 


85 


ter, and better, and better! ” Her voice went 
higher with each “ better,” till it got quite to a 
squeak at last. 

Alice was just beginning to say, “ There’s a 

mistake somewhere ” when the Queen began 

screaming so loud that she had to leave the 
sentence unfinished. “ Oh, oh, oh! ” shouted 
the Queen, shaking her hand about as if she 
wanted to shake it off. “ My finger’s bleed- 
ing! Oh, oh, oh, oh! ” 

Her screams were so exactly like the whistle 
of a steam-engine that Alice had to hold both 
her hands over her ears. 

“ What is the matter? ” she said, as soon as 
there was a chance of making herself heard. 
“ Have you pricked your finger? ” 

“ I haven’t pricked it yet,” the Queen said* 
“ but I soon shall — oh, oh, oh! ” 

“ When do you expect to do it? ” Alice asked, 
feeling very much inclined to laugh. 

u When I fasten my shawl again,” the poor 
Queen groaned out; “ the brooch will come un- 
done directly. Oh, oh!” As she said the 


86 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


words the brooch flew open, and the Queen 
clutched wildly at it, and tried to clasp it again. 

" Tate care! ” cried Alice. " You’re hold- 
ing it all crooked! ” And she caught at the 
brooch; hut it was too late; the pin had slipped, 
and the Queen had pricked her finger. 

“ That accounts for the bleeding, you see,” 
she said to Alice with a smile. “ Now you un- 
derstand the way things happen here.” 

"But why don’t you scream now?” Alice 
asked, holding her hands ready to put over her 
ears again. 

" Why, I’ve done all the screaming already,” 
said the Queen. " What would be the good of 
having it all over again?” 

By this time it was getting light. "The 
crow must have flown away, I think,” said 
Alice; " I’m so glad it’s gone. I thought it was 
the night coming on.” 

"I wish I could manage to be glad!” the 
Queen said. " Only I never can remember the 
rule. You must be very happy living in this 
wood, and being glad whenever you like.” 


WOOL AND WATER. 


87 


44 Only it is so very lonely here! ” Alice said 
in a melancholy voice; and at the thought of 
her loneliness two large tears came rolling down 
her cheeks. 

“ Oh, don’t go on like that! ” cried the poor 
Queen, wringing her hands in despair. “ Con- 
sider what a great girl you are. Consider what 
a long way you’ve come to-day. Consider what 
o’clock it is. Consider anything, only don’t 
cry! ” 

Alice could not help laughing at this, even in 
the midst of her tears. “ Can you keep from 
crying by considering things? ” she asked. 

“ That’s the way it’s done,” the Queen said 
with great decision; “ nobody can do two things 
at once, you know. Let’s consider your age, to 
begin with — how old are you? ” 

“ I’m seven and a half exactly.” 

“ You needn’t say ‘ exactually,’ ” the Queen 
remarked; “ I can believe it without that. Now 
I’ll give you something to believe. I’m just 
one hundred and one, five months, and a day.” 

“I can’t believe that!” said Alice. 


88 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


“ Can’t you?” the Queen said in a pitying 
tone. “Try again; draw a long breath, and 
shut your eyes.” 

Alice laughed. “ There’s no use trying,” 
she said; “ one can’t believe impossible things.” 

“ I dare say you haven’t had much practice,” 
said the Queen. “When I was your age, I 
always did it for half an hour a day. Why, 
sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impos- 
sible things before breakfast. There goes the 
shawl again! ” 

The brooch had come undone as she spoke, 
and a sudden gust of wind blew the Queen’s 
shawl across a little brook. The Queen spread 
out her arms again, and went flying after it, and 
this time she succeeded in catching it for her- 
self. “ I’ve got it! ” she cried in a triumphant 
tone. “ Now you shall see me pin it on again, 
all by myself! ” 

“Then I hope your finger is better now?” 
Alice said very politely, as she crossed the little 
brook after the Queen. 


WOOL AND WATER. 


80 


“ Oh, much better! ” cried the Queen, her 
voice rising into a squeak as she went on. 
“Much he-etter! Be-etter! Be-e-e-etter! 
Be-e-ehh! ” The last word ended in a 
long bleat, so like a sheep that Alice quite 
started. 

She looked at the Queen, who seemed to have 
suddenly wrapped herself up in wool. Alice 
rubbed her eyes, and looked again. She 
couldn’t make out what had happened at all. 
Was she in a shop? And was that really — was 
it really a sheep that was sitting on the other 
side of the counter? Rub as she would, she 
could make nothing more of it; she was in a 
little dark shop, leaning with her elbows on the 
counter, and opposite to her was an old Sheep, 
sitting in an arm chair knitting, and every now 
and then leaving off to look at her through a 
great pair of spectacles. 

“What is it you want to buy?” the Sheep 
said at last, looking up for a moment from her 
knitting. 

“I don’t quite know yet,” Alice said very 


90 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


gently. "I should like to look all round me 
first, if I might.” 

“ You may look in front of you, and on both 
sides, if you like,” said the Sheep; “but you 
can’t look all round you — unless you’ve got eyes 
at the back of your head.” 

But these, as it happened, Alice had not got; 
so she contented herself with turning round, 
looking at the shelves as she came to them. 

The shop seemed to be full of all manner of 
curious things — hut the oddest part of it all 
was that, whenever she looked hard at any shelf, 
to make out exactly what it had on it, that par- 
ticular shelf was always quite empty; though 
the others round it were crowded as full as they 
could hold. 

“ Things flow about so here! ” she said at 
last in a plaintive tone, after she had spent a 
minute or so in vainly pursuing a large bright 
thing, that looked sometimes like a doll and 
sometimes like a workbox, and was always in 
the shelf next above the one she was looking at. 
“And this one is the most provoking of all— 


WOOL AND WATER. 


91 


but Fll tell you what/’ she added, as a sud- 
den thought struck her, “ I’ll follow it up to the 
very top shelf of all. It ’ll puzzle it to go 
through the ceiling, I expect! ” 

But even this plan failed; the “ thing ” went 
through the ceiling as quietly as possible, as if 
it were quite used to it. 

“ Are you a child or a teetotum? ” the Sheep 
said, as she took up another pair of needles. 
“You’ll make me giddy soon, if you go on 
turning round like that.” She was now work- 
ing with fourteen pairs at once, and Alice 
couldn’t help looking at her in great astonish- 
ment. 

“How can she knit with so many?” the 
puzzled child thought to herself. “ She 
gets more and more like a porcupine every 
minute! ” 

“Can you row?” the Sheep asked, handing 
her a pair of knitting-needles as she spoke. 

“Yes, a little — but not on land — and not 

with needles ” Alice was beginning to say, 

when suddenly the needles turned into oars in 


92 THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 

her hands, and she found they were in a little 
boat, gliding along between banks; so there was 
nothing for it but to do her best. 

“ Feather! ” cried the Sheep, as she took up 
another pair of needles. 

This didn’t sound like a remark that needed 
any answer, so Alice said nothing, but pulled 
away. There was something very queer about 
the water, she thought, as every now and then 
the oars got fast in it, and would hardly come 
out again. 

“ Feather! feather! ” the Sheep cried again, 
taking more needles. “ You’ll be catching a 
crab directly.” 

“A dear little crab!” thought Alice. “I 
should like that.” 

“ Didn’t you hear me say ‘ Feather’?” the 
Sheep cried angrily, taking up quite a bunch 
of needles. 

“ Indeed I did!” said Alice; “ you’ve said it 
very often — and very loud. Please, where are 
the crabs?” 

“ In the water, of course! ” said the Sheep, 



94 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


sticking some of the needles into her hair, as 
her hands were full. “ Feather, I say!” 

“ Why do you say ‘ Feather’ so often?” 
Alice asked at last, rather vexed. “ Fm not a 
bird! ” 

“ You are,” said the Sheep; “ you’re a little 
goose.” 

This offended Alice a little, so there was no 
more conversation for a minute or two, while 
the boat glided gently on, sometimes among 
beds of weeds (which made the oars stick fast 
in the water, worse than ever), and sometimes 
under trees, but always with the same tall river 
banks frowning over their heads. 

“ Oh, please! There are some scented 
rushes! ” Alice cried in a sudden transport 
of delight. “ There really are — and such 
beauties! ” 

“ You needn’t say < please ’ to me about ’em,” 
the Sheep said, without looking up from her 
knitting. “ I didn’t put ’em there, and I’m not 
going to take ’em away.” 

“ No, but I meant — please, may we wait and 


WOOL AND WATER. 


95 


pick some?” Alice pleaded. “If you don’t 
mind stopping the boat for a minute.” 

“How am I to stop it?” said the Sheep. 
“ If you leave off rowing, it ’ll stop of itself.” 

So the boat was left to drift down the stream 
as it would, till it glided gently in among the 
waving rushes. And then the little sleeves were 
carefully rolled up, and the little arms were 
plunged in elbow-deep, to get hold of the 
rushes a good long way down before breaking 
them off — and for a while Alice forgot all about 
the Sheep and the knitting, as she bent over the 
side of the boat, with just the ends of her 
tangled hair dipping into the water; while, with 
bright eager eyes, she caught at one bunch after 
another of the darling scented rushes. 

“ I only hope the boat won’t tipple over! ” 
she said to herself. “ Oh, what a lovely one! 
Only I couldn’t quite reach it.” And it cer- 
tainly did seem a little provoking (“ almost as 
if it happened on purpose,” she thought) that, 
though she managed to pick plenty of beauti- 
ful rushes as the boat glided by, there was 


96 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


always a more lovely one that she couldn’t 
reach. 

“ The prettiest are always further! ” she said 
at last, with a sigh at the obstinacy of the 
rushes growing so far off, as, with flushed 
cheeks and dripping hair and hands, she 
scrambled hack into her place, and began to 
arrange her new-found treasures. 

What mattered it to her just then that the 
rushes had begun to fade, and to lose all their 
scent and beauty, from the very moment that 
she picked them? Even real scented rushes, 
you know, last only a very little while — and 
these, being dream rushes, melted away almost 
like snow, as they lay in heaps at her feet — but 
Alice hardly noticed this, there were so many 
other curious things to think about. 

They hadn’t gone much farther before the 
blade of one <5f the oars got fast in the water 
and wouldn’t come out again (so Alice ex- 
plained it afterward), and the consequence was 
that the handle of it caught her under the chin, 
and, in spite of a series of shrieks of “ Oh, oh. 


WOOL AND WATER. 


97 


oh! ” from poor Alice, it swept her straight off 
the seat, and down among the heap of rushes. 

However, she wasn’t a bit hurt, and was soon 
up again; the Sheep went on with her knitting 
all the while, just as if nothing had happened. 
“ That was a nice crab you caught! ” she re- 
marked, as Alice got back into her place, very 
much relieved to find herself still in the boat. 

“ Was it? I didn’t see it,” said Alice, peep- 
ing cautiously over the side of the boat into the 
dark water. “ I wish it hadn’t let go — I should 
so like a little crab to take home with me! ” 
But the Sheep only laughed scornfully, and 
went on with her knitting. 

“ Are there many crabs here? ” said Alice. 

“ Crabs, and all sorts of things,” said the 
Sheep; “ plenty of choice, only make up your 
mind. Now, what do you want to buy? ” 

“ To buy? ” Alice echoed in a tone that was 
half astonished and half frightened — for the 
oars, and the boat, and the river had vanished 
all in a moment, and she was back again in the 
little dark shop. 


98 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


“I should like to buy an egg , please / 5 she 
said timidly. “ How do you sell them ? 55 

“ Fivepence farthing for one — twopence for 
two / 5 the Sheep replied. 

“Then two are cheaper than one ? 55 Alice 
said in a surprised tone, taking out her purse. 

“ Only you must eat them both, if you buy 
two / 5 said the Sheep. 

“ Then Fll have one , please / 5 said Alice, as 
she put the money down on the counter. For 
she thought to herself, “ They mightn’t he at 
all nice, you know . 55 

The Sheep took the money, and put it away 
in a box; then she said, “I never put things 
into people’s hands, — that would never do, — 
you must get it for yourself . 55 And so saying, 
she went off to the other end of the shop, and 
set the egg upright on a shelf. 

“I wonder why it wouldn’t do?” thought 
Alice, as she groped her way among the tables 
and chairs, for the shop was very dark toward 
the end. “ The egg seems to get further away 
the more I walk toward it. Let me see, is this 


WOOL AND WATEB. 


99 


a chair? Why, it’s got branches, I declare! 
How very odd to find trees growing here! And 
actually here’s a little brook! Well, this is the 
very queerest shop I ever saw! ” 

***** 

So she went on, wondering more and more 
at every step, as everything turned into a tree 
the moment she came up to it, and she quite 
expected the ©gg to do the same. 


CHAPTER VL 

HUMPTY DUMPTY. 

However, the egg only got larger and larger, 
and more and more human; when she had come 
within a few yards of it, she saw that it had 
eyes and a nose and mouth; and when she had 
come close to it, she saw clearly that it was 
HUMPTY DUMPTY himself. “ It can’t he 
anybody else!” she said to herself. “ I’m as 
certain of it as if his name were written all over 
his face! ” 

It might have been written a hundred times, 
easily, on that enormous face. Humpty 
Dumpty was sitting with his legs crossed, like 
a Turk, on the top of a high wall — such a nar- 
row one that Alice quite wondered how he could 
keep his balance — and, as his eyes were steadily 
100 


HUMPTY DUMPTY. 


101 


fixed in the opposite direction, and he didn’t 
take the least notice of her, she thought he 
must be a stuffed figure after all. 

" And how exactly like an egg he is! ” she 
said aloud, standing with her hands ready to 
catch him, for she was every moment expect- 
ing him to fall. 

" It’s very provoking,” Humpty Dumpty 
said after a long silence, looking away from 
Alice as he spoke, "to be called an egg — 
very ! ” 

"I said you looked like an egg, sir,” Alice 
gently explained. "And some eggs are very 
pretty, you know,” she added, hoping to turn 
her remark into a sort of compliment. 

" Some people,” said Humpty Dumpty, look- 
ing away from her, as usual, "have no more 
sense than a baby! ” 

Alice didn’t know what to say to this; it 
wasn’t at all like conversation, she thought, as 
he never said anything to her; in fact, his last 
remark was evidently addressed to a tree — so 
she stood and softly repeated to herself: 


102 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


•* Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall: 

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. 

All the King’s horses and all the King’s men 
Couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty in his place again.” 

“ That last line is much too long for 
the poetry/’ she added, almost out loud, for- 
getting that Humpty Dumpty would hear 
her. 

“ Don’t stand chattering to yourself like 
that,” Humpty Dumpty said, looking at her 
for the first time, “ but tell me your name and 
your business.” 

“ My name is Alice, hut ■” 

“ It’s a stupid name enough!” Humpty 
Dumpty interrupted impatiently. “ What does 
it mean? ” 

“ Must a name mean something?” Alice 
asked doubtfully. 

“ Of course it must,” Humpty Dumpty said 
with a short laugh; “ my name means the shape 
I am — and a good, handsome shape it is, too. 
With a name like yours, you might be any shape 
almost.” 


HUMPTY DUMPTY. 


103 


“Why do you sit out here all alone?” said 
Alice, not wishing to begin an argument. 

“Why, because there’s nobody with me!” 
cried Humpty Dumpty. “Did you think I 
didn’t know the answer to that? Ask another.” 

“Don’t you think you’d be safer down on 
the ground? ” Alice went on, not with any idea 
of making another riddle, but simply in her 
good-natured anxiety for the queer creature. 
“ That wall is so very narrow! ” 

“ What tremendously easy riddles you ask! ” 
Humpty Dumpty growled out. “ Of course I 
don’t think so! Why, if ever I did fall off — 

which there’s no chance of — but if I did ” 

Here he pursed up his lips, and looked so 
solemn and grand that Alice could hardly help 
laughing. “If I did fall,” he went on, “ the 
King has promised me — ah, you may . turn 
pale, if you like! You didn’t think I was go- 
ing to say that, did you? The King has prom- 
ised me — with his very own mouth — to — to ” 

“ To send all his horses and all his men,” 
Alice interrupted rather unwisely. 


104 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


“Now I declare, that’s too bad!” Humpty 
Dumpty cried, breaking into a sudden passion. 
“You’ve been listening at doors — and behind 
trees — and down chimneys — or you couldn’t 
have known it! ” 

“I haven’t, indeed! ” Alice said very gently. 
“It’s in a book.” 

“Ah, well! They may write such things in 
a book” Humpty Dumpty said in a calmer tone. 
“That’s what you call a History of England, 
that is. Now, take a good look at me! I’m 
one that has spoken to a King, I am; mayhap 
you’ll never see such another; and to show you 
I’m not proud, you may shake hands with me! ” 
And he grinned almost from ear to ear, as he 
leant forward (and as nearly as possible fell off 
the wall in doing so) and offered Alice his hand. 
She watched him a little anxiously as she took 
it. “ If he smiled much more, the ends of his 
mouth might meet behind,” she thought; “ and 
then I don’t know what would happen to his 
head! I’m afraid it would come off! ” 

“Yes, all his horses and all his men,” 


HUMPTY DUMPTY. 


105 


Humpty Dumpty went on. “ They’d pick me 
up again in a minute, they would! However, 



this conversation is 
going on a little too 
fast; let’s go back to 
the last remark hut 
one.” 

“ I’m afraid I can’t 
quite remember it,” 
Alice said very politely. 
“In that case we start fresh,” said Humpty 
Dumpty, “and it’s my turn to choose a sub- 
ject.” (“ He talks about it just as if it was a 



106 


THBOUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


game!” thought Alice.) “So here’s a ques- 
tion for you. How old did you say you were? ” 

Alice made a short calculation, and said, 
“ Seven years and six months.” 

“ Wrong] ” Humpty Dumpty exclaimed tri- 
umphantly. “ You never said a word like it! ” 

“ I thought you meant, ( How old are 
you?’” Alice explained. 

“If I’d meant that, I’d have said it,” said 
Humpty Dumpty. 

Alice didn’t want to begin another argument, 
so she said nothing. 

“ Seven years and six months! ” Humpty 
Dumpty repeated thoughtfully. “ An uncom- 
fortable sort of age. How, if you’d asked my 
advice, I’d have said, ‘ Leave off at seven ’; but 
it’s too late now.” 

“ I never ask advice about growing,” Alice 
said indignantly. 

“ Too proud? ” the other inquired. 

Alice felt even more indignant at this sug- 
gestion. “ I mean,” she said, “that one can’t 
help growing older.” 


HUMPTY DUMPTY. 


107 


“ One can’t, perhaps/’ said Humpty Dumpty, 
“but two can. With proper assistance, you 
might have left off at seven.” 

“ What a beautiful belt you’ve got on! ” Alice 
suddenly remarked. (They had had quite 
enough of the subject of age, she thought; and 
if they really were to take turns in choosing 
subjects, it was her turn now.) “At least,” 
she corrected herself on second thoughts, “a 
beautiful cravat, I should have said — no, a belt, 
I mean — I beg your pardon! ’’ she added in 
dismay, for Humpty Dumpty looked thoroughly 
offended, and she began to wish she hadn’t 
chosen that subject. “If only I knew,” she 
thought to herself, “ which was neck and which 
was waist! ” 

Evidently Humpty Dumpty was very angry, 
though he said nothing for a minute or two. 
When he did speak again, it was in a deep 
growl. 

“It is a — most — provoking — thing,” he said 
at last, “ when a person doesn’t know a cravat 
from a belt! ” 


108 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


“ I know it’s very ignorant of me,” Alice said, 
in so humble a tone that Humpty Dumpty 
relented. 

“ It’s a cravat, child, and a beautiful one, as 
you say. It’s a present from the White King 
and Queen. There now! ” 

“ Is it really?” said Alice, quite pleased to 
find that she had chosen a good subject, after 
all. 

“ They gave it me,” Humpty Dumpty con- 
tinued thoughtfully, as he crossed one knee 
over the other and clasped his hands round 
it, “ they gave it me — for an un-birthday 
present.” 

"I beg your pardon?” Alice said with a 
puzzled air. 

“ I am not offended,” said Humpty Dumpty. 

“ I mean, what is an un-birthday present? ” 

“ A present given when it isn’t your birth- 
day, of course.” 

Alice considered a little. “I like birthday 
presents best,” she said at last. 

“ You don’t know what you’re talking 


HUMPTY DUMPTY. 


109 


about! ” cried Humpty Dumpty. “ How many 
days are there in a year? ” 

“ Three hundred and sixty-five/’ said Alice. 

“ And how many birthdays have you? ” 

“ One.” 

“And if you take one from three hundred 
and sixty-five, what remains? ” 

“ Three hundred and sixty-four, of course.” 

Humpty Dumpty looked doubtful. “ Fd 
rather see that done on paper,” he said. 

Alice couldn’t help smiling as she took ou£ 
her memorandum book, and worked the sum 
for him: 

365 

1 

364 

Humpty Dumpty took the book, and looked 
at it carefully. “ That seems to be done 
right — -” he began. 

“ You’re holding it upside down! ” Alice in- 
terrupted. 


no 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


“ To do store I was! ” Humpty Dumpty said 
gayly, as she turned it round for him. “I 
thought it looked a little queer. As I was say- 
ing, that seems to he done right, — though I 
haven’t time to look it over thoroughly just 
now, — and that shows that there are three hun- 
dred and sixty-four days when you might get 
un-birthdav .presents ” 

“ Certainly,” said Alice. 

“And only one for birthday presents, you 
know. There’s glory for you! ” 

“ I don't Know what you mean by c glory,’ ” 
Alice said. 

Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. 
“ Of course you don’t — till I tell you. I meant 
* there’s a nice knockdown argument for 
you.’ ” 

“But ‘.dory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock- 
down argument,”’ Alice objected. 

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty 
said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just 
what I choose it to mean — neither more nor 


HUMPTY DUMPTY. 


Ill 


“ The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, 
can make words mean so many different 
things.” 

“ The question is,” said Alice, “ whether you 
“ which is to be master — that’s all.” 

Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, 
so, after a minute, Humpty Dumpty began 
again. “ They’ve a temper, some of them — 
particularly verbs, they’re the proudest — 
adjectives you can do anything with, but not 
verbs — however, I can manage the whole lot of 
them! Impenetrability! That’s what I say! ” 

“ Would you tell me, please,” said Alice, 
“ what that means? ” 

“ Now you talk like a reasonable child,” said 
Humpty Dumpty, looking very much pleased, 
“ 1 meant by ‘ impenetrability ’ that we’ve had 
enough of that subject, and it would be just as 
well if you’d mention what you mean to do 
next, as I suppose you don’t mean to stop here 
all the rest of your life.” 

“ That’s a great deal to make one word 
mean,” Alice said in a thoughtful tone. 


112 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


“ When I make a word do a lot of work like 
that/ 5 said Humpty Dumpty, “ I always pay it 
extra.” 

“ Oh! ” said Alice. She was too much puz- 
zled to make any other remark. 

“Ah., you should see ’em come round me 
of a Saturday night,” Humpty Dumpty 
went on, wagging his head gravely from 
side to side; “for to get their wages, you 
know.” 

(Alice did not venture to ask what he 
paid them with; and so, you see, I can’t tell 
you.) 

“ You seem very clever at explaining words, 
sir,” said Alice. “Would you kindly tell me 
the meaning of the poem called ‘ Jabber- 
wocky ’? ” 

“ Let’s hear it,” said Humpty Dumpty. “ I 
can explain all the poems that ever were in- 
vented — and a good many that haven’t been in- 
vented just yet.” 

This sounded very hopeful, so Alice repeated 
the first verse: 


HTTMPTY DUMPTY. 


113 


“ *Twas brillig, and the slithy tores 
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe : 

All mimsy were the borogoves, 

And the mome raths outgrabe.” 

“ That’s enough to begin with,” Humpty 
Dumpty interrupted; “ there are plenty of hard 
words there. ‘ Brillig ’ means four o’clock in 
the afternoon — the time when you begin broil- 
ing things for dinner.” 

“That ’ll do very well,” said Alice; “and 
‘slithy’?” 

“Well, ‘slithy’ means ‘ lithe and slimy.’ 
‘ Lithe’ is the same as e active.’ You see it’s 
like a portmanteau — there are two meanings 
packed up in one word.” 

“ I see it now,” Alice remarked thoughtfully; 
“ and what are f toves ’? ” 

“ Well, ‘ toves ’ are something like badgers — 
they’re something like lizards — and they’re 
something like corkscrews.” 

“ They must he very curious-looking crea- 
tures.” 

“They are that,” said Humpty Dumpty, 


114 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


"also they make their nests under sun-dials— 
also they live on cheese.” 

" And what’s to c gyre 9 and to e gimble 9 ? 99 

" To c gyre 9 is to go round and round like a 
gyroscope. To * gimble 9 is to make holes like 
a gimlet.” 

"And ‘ the wabe 9 is the grass-plot round & 
aun-dial, I suppose?” said Alice, surprised at 
her own ingenuity. 

" Of course it is. It’s called ‘ wabe 9 you 
know, because it goes a long way before it, and 
a long way behind it.” 

"And a long way beyond it on each side,” 
Alice added. 

"Exactly so. Well, then, ‘mimsy 9 is 
‘ flimsy and miserable ’ (there’s another port- 
manteau for you). And a ‘ borogove ’ is a 
thin, shabby-looking bird with its feathers 
sticking out all round — something like a live 
mop.” 

"And then ‘ mome raths 9 ? 99 said Alice. 
"I’m afraid I’m giving you a great deal of 
trouble.” 



» 

l 


/ 







116 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


“ Well, a ‘ rath 9 is a sort of green pig: but 
c mome 9 Fm not certain about. I think it’s 
short for ‘from home* — meaning that they’d 
lost their way, you know.” 

“ And what does ‘ outgrabe 9 mean? ” 

“ Well, ‘ outgribing 9 is something between 
bellowing and whistling, with a kind of sneeze 
in the middle; however, you’ll hear it done, 
maybe — down in the wood yonder — and when 
you’ve once heard it you’ll be quite content. 
Who’s been repeating all that hard stuff to 
you? ” 

“I read it in a book,” said Alice. “But 
I had some poetry repeated to me, much 
easier than that, by — Tweedledee, I think it 
was.” 

“As to poetry, you know,” said Humpty 
Dumpty, stretching out one of his great hands, 
“ I can repeat poetry as well as other folk, if it 
comes to that.” 

“ Oh, it needn’t come to that I ” Alice hastily 
said, hoping to keep him from beginning. 

“The piece I’m going to repeat,” he went 


HUMPTY DUMPTY. 11^ 

on, without noticing her remark, “ was written 
entirely for your amusement.” 

Alice felt that in that case she really ought 
to listen to it, so she sat down, and said, 
“ Thank you,” rather sadly. 

“ In winter when the fields are white, 

I sing this song for your delight 

only I don’t sing it,” he added, as an ex- 
planation. 

“ I see you don’t,” said Alice. 

“ If you can see whether I’m singing or not, 
you’ve sharper eyes than most,” Humpty 
Dumpty remarked severely. Alice was 
silent. 


“ In spring, when woods are getting green. 
I'll try and tell you what I mean." 

44 Thank you, very much,” said Alice. 

** In summer, when the days are long, 
Perhaps you’ll understand the song. 


118 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


44 In autumn, when the leaves are brown. 

Take pen and ink, and write it down." 

“ I will, if I can remember it so long,” said 
Alice. 

“You needn’t go on making remarks like 
that,” Humpty Dumpty said; “they’re not 
sensible, and they put me out.” 

“ I sent a message to the fish : 

I told them * This is what I wish/ 

•* The little fishes of the sea, 

They sent an answer back to me. 

44 The little fishes* answer was 
4 We cannot do it, sir, because ,n 

“I’m afraid I don’t quite understand,” said 
Alice. 

“ It gets easier, further on,” Humpty Dumpty 
replied. 

44 1 sent to them again to say 
4 It will be better to obey/ 


HUMPTY DUMPTY. 


118 


*' The fishes answered with a grin, 

4 Why, what a temper you are in ! * 

44 1 told them once, I told them twictj 
They would not listen to advice. 

ct 1 took a kettle large and new, 

Fit for the deed I had to do. 

44 My heart went hop, my heart went thump % 

I filled the kettle at the pump. 

44 Then someone came to me and said, 

* The little fishes are in bed.’ 

44 1 said to him, I said it plain, 

4 Then you must wake them up again/ 

44 1 said it very loud and clear ; 

I went and shouted in his ear.” 

Humpty Dumpty raised his voice almost to a 
scream as he repeated this verse, and Alice 
thought, with a shudder, “ I wouldn’t have 
been the messenger for anything !” 

44 But he was very stiff and proud ; 

He said, 4 You needn’t shout so loud !’ 


120 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


** And lie was very proud and stiff ; 

He said, ' I’d go and wake them, if—* 

44 1 took a corkscrew from the shelf ; 

I went to wake them up myself. 

44 And when I found the door was locked, 

I pulled and pushed and kicked and knocked 

44 And when I found the door was shut, 

I tried to turn the handle, but ” 

There was a long pause. 

“Is that all?” Alice timidly asked. 

“ That’s all/’ said Humpty Dumpty. “ Groo& 
by.” 

This was rather sudden, Alice thought; but, 
after such a very strong hint that she ought to 
he going, she felt that it would hardly be civil 
to stay. So she got up and held out her hand. 
“ Good-by, till we meet again! ” she said aa 
cheerfully as she could. 

“I shouldn’t know you again if we did 
meet,” Humpty Dumpty replied in a dis- 
contented tone, giving her one of hi® fin* 


HTTMPTY DUMPTY. 


121 


gers to shake; “ you’re so exactly like other 
people.” 

“ The face is what one goes by, generally,” 
Alice remarked in a thoughtful tone. 

“That’s just what I complain of,” said 
Humpty Dumpty. “ Your face is the same as 
everybody has — the two eyes, so” (marking 
their places in the air with his thumb), “ nose 
in the middle, mouth under. It’s always the 
same. Now, if you had the two eyes on the 
same side of the nose, for instance, — or 
the mouth at the top, — that would be some 
help.” 

“ It wouldn’t look nice,” Alice objected. 

But Humpty Dumpty only shut his eyes and 
said, “ Wait till you’ve tried.” 

Alice waited a minute to see if he would 
speak again, but as he never opened his eyes 
or took any further notice of her, she said, 
“ Good-by! ” once more, and, getting no an- 
swer to this, she quietly walked away; but she 
couldn’t help saying to herself as she went, 
H Of all the unsatisfactory ” (she repeated this 


122 THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 

aloud, as it was a great comfort to have such a 
long word to say) “of all the unsatisfactory 

people I ever met ” She never finished the 

sentence, for, at this moment, a heavy crash 
ahook the forest from end to end. 


CHAPTER YH. 

THE LION AND THE UNICORN. 

The next moment soldiers came running 
through the wood — at first in twos and threes, 
then ten or twenty together, and at last in such 
crowds that they seemed to fill the whole forest. 
Alice got behind a tree, for fear of being run 
over, and watched them go by. 

She thought that, in all her life, she had 
never seen soldiers so uncertain on their feet; 
they were always tripping over something or 
other, and whenever one went down, several 
more always fell over him, so that the ground 
was soon covered with little heaps of men. 

Then came the horses. Having four feet, 
these managed rather better than the foot sol- 
diers; but even they stumbled now and then; 
and it seemed to be a regular rule that, when- 

123 


124 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


ever a horse stumbled, the rider fell off in- 
stantly. The confusion got worse every mo- 
ment, and Alice was very glad to get out of the 
wood into an open place, where she found the 
White King seated on the ground, busily writ- 
ing in his memorandum-book. 

“ I’ve sent them all! ” the King cried in a 
tone of delight, on seeing Alice. “ Did you 
happen to meet any soldiers, my dear, as you 
came through the wood?” 

“ Yes, I did,” said Alice; “ several thousand, 
I should think.” 

“ Four thousand two hundred and seven, 
that’s the exact number,” the King said, refer- 
ring to his book. “I couldn’t send all the 
horses, you know, because two of them are 
wanted in the game. And I haven’t sent the 
two Messengers, either. They’re both gone to 
the town. Just look along the road, and tell 
me if you can see either of them.” 

“ I see nobody on the road,” said Alice. 

“ I only wish I had such eyes,” the King re- 
marked in a fretful tone. “ To be able to see 


THE LION AND THE UNICORN. 


125 


Nobody! And at that distance, too! Why, 
it’s as much as I can do to see real people, by 
this light! ” 

All this was lost on Alice, who was still look- 
ing intently along the road, shading her eyes 
with one hand. "I see somebody now!” she 
exclaimed at last. “ But he’s coming very 
.slowly — and what curious attitudes he goes 
into! ” (For the Messenger kept skipping up 
and down, and wriggling like an eel, as he 
came along, with his great hands spread out 
like fans on each side.) 

“Not at all,” said the King. “He’s an 
Anglo-Saxon Messenger — and those are Anglo- 
Saxon attitudes. He only does them when he’s 
happy. His name is Haigha.” (He pro- 
nounced it so as to rhyme with “ mayor.”) 

“ I love my love with an H,” Alice couldn’t 
help beginning, “ because he is Happy. I hate 
him with an H, because he is Hideous. I fed 
him with — with — with Ham sandwiches and 
Hay. His name is Haigha, and he lives ” 

“ He lives on the Hill,” the King remarked 


120 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


simply, without the least idea that he was join- 
ing in the game, while Alice was still hesitating 
for the name of a town beginning with H. 
“ The other Messenger’s called Hatta. I must 
have two , you know — to come and go. One to 
come, and one to go.” 

“I beg your pardon?” said Alice. 

“ It isn’t respectable to beg,” said the King. 

“ I only meant that I didn’t understand,” 
said Alice. “Why one to come and one to 
go?” 

“Don’t I tell you?” the King repeated im- 
patiently. “I must have two — to fetch and 
carry. One to fetch, and one to carry.” 

At this moment the Messenger arrived: he 
was far too much out of breath to say a word, 
and could only wave his hands about, and make 
the most fearful faces at the poor King. 

“ This young lady loves you with an H,” the 
King said, introducing Alice in the hope of 
turning off the Messenger’s attention from him- 
self — hut it was no use — the Anglo-Saxon atti- 
tudes only got more extraordinary every me- 


THE LION AND THE UNICORN. 


127 


ment, while the great eyes rolled wildly from 
side to side. 

“You alarm me!” said the King. “I feel 
faint. Give me a ham sandwich! ” 

On which the Messenger, to Alice’s great 
amusement, opened a hag that hung round his 
neck, and handed a sandwich to the King, who 
devoured it greedily. 

“ Another sandwich! ” said the King. 

“ There’s nothing hut hay left now,” the 
Messenger said, peeping into the bag. 

“ Hay, then,” the King murmured in a faint 
whisper. 

Alice was glad to see that it revived him a 
good deal. “There’s nothing like eating hay 
when you’re faint,” he remarked to her, as he 
munched away. 

“I should think throwing cold water over 
you would be better,” Alice suggested — “or 
some sal-volatile.” 

“ I didn’t say there was nothing better” the 
King replied. “I said there was nothing like 
it.” Which Alice did not venture to deny. 


128 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


“ Who did you pass on the road? ” the King 
went on, holding out his hand to the Messenger 
for some more hay. 

“Nobody,” said the Messenger. 

“ Quite right,” said the King; “ this young 
lady saw him too. So, of course, Nobody walks 
slower than you.” 

“ I do my best,” the Messenger said in a sul- 
len tone. “ I’m sure nobody walks much faster 
than I do! ” 

“ He can’t do that,” said the King, “ or else 
he’d have been here first. However, now 
you’ve got your breath, you may tell us what’s 
happened in the town.” 

“I’ll whisper it,” said the Messenger, put- 
ting his hands to his mouth in the shape of a 
trumpet and stooping so as to get close to the 
King’s ear. Alice was sorry for this, as she 
wanted to hear the news, too. However, in- 
stead of whispering, he simply shouted at the 
top of his voice, “ They’re at it again! ” 

“Do you call that a whisper?” cried the 
poor King, jumping up and shaking himself. 


THE LION AND THE UNICORN. 129 

“ If you do such a thing again, I’ll have you 
buttered! It went through and through my 
head like an earthquake! ” 

“ It would have to be a very tiny earth- 
quake! ” thought Alice. “ Who are at it 
again?” she ventured to ask. 

“ Why, the Lion and the Unicorn, of course,” 
said the King. 

“ Fighting for the crown? ” 

“ Yes, to he sure,” said the King; “ and the 
best of the joke is, that it’s my crown all the 
while! Let’s run and see them.” And they 
trotted off, Alice repeating to herself, as she 
ran, the words of the old song: 

‘ The Lion and the Unicorn were fighting for the crown: 

The Lion beat the Unicorn all round the town. 

Some gave them white bread, some gave them brown; 

Some gave them plum-cake and drummed them out 
of town.” 

“ Does — the one — that wins — get the 
crown? ” she asked, as well as she could, for the 
run was putting her quite out of breath. 


SWU THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 

" Dear me, no! ” said the King. “ What an 
idea! ” 

“ Would you — be good enough,” Alice panted 
out, after running a little further, “ to stop a 
minute — just to get — one’s breath again?” 

“ I’m good enough,” the King said, “ only 
I’m not strong enough. You see, a minute goes 
by so fearfully quick. You might as well 
try to stop a Bandersnatch! ” 

Alice had no more breath for talking, so they 
trotted on in silence, till they came in sight of 
a great crowd, in the middle of which the Lion 
and Unicom were fighting. They were in such 
a cloud of dust that, at first, Alice could not 
make out which was which; but she soon 
managed to distinguish the Unicom by his 
horn. 

They placed themselves close to where Hatta, 
the other Messenger, was standing watching the 
fight, with a cup of tea in one hand and a piece 
of bread and butter in the other. 

“ He’s only just out of prison, and he hadn’t 
finished his tea when he was sent in,” Haigha 


THE LION AND THE UNICORN. 


131 


whispered to Alice; “ and they only give them 
oyster shells in there — so yon see he’s very hun- 
gry and thirsty. How are you, dear child?” 
he went on, putting his arm affectionately 
round Hatta’s neck. 

Hatta looked round and nodded, and went on 
with his bread and butter. 

“Were you happy in prison, dear child?” 
said Haigha. 

Hatta looked round once more, and this 
time a tear or two trickled down his cheek; hut 
not a word would he say. 

“ Speak, can’t you! ” Haigha cried impa- 
tiently. But Hatta only munched away, and 
drank some more tea. 

“ Speak, won’t you! ” cried the King. “ How 
are they getting on with the fight? ” 

Hatta made a desperate effort, and swallowed 
a large piece of bread and butter. “ They’re 
getting on very well,” he said in a choking 
voice; “each of them has been down about 
eighty-seven times.” 

“ Then I suppose they’ll soon bring the white 


182 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


bread and the brown?” Alice ventured tfc 
remark. 

“It’s waiting for ’em now,” said Hatta; 
“ this is a bit of it as I’m eating.” 

There was a pause in the fight just then, and 
the Lion and the Unicom sat down, panting, 
while the King called out, “ Ten minutes 
allowed for refreshments! ” Haigha and Hatta 
set to work at once, carrying trays of white and 
brown bread. Alice took a piece to taste, but 
it was very dry. 

“ I don’t think they’ll fight any more to- 
day,” the King said to Hatta; “go and order 
the drums to begin.” And Hatta went bound- 
ing away like a grasshopper. 

For a minute or two Alice stood silent, watch- 
ing him. Suddenly she brightened up. 
“ Look, look! ” she cried, pointing eagerly. 
“ There’s the White Queen running across the 
country! She came flying out of the wood 
over yonder. How fast those Queens can 
run!” 

“There’s some enemy after her, no doubt,” 


THE LION AND THE UNICORN. 


133 


the King said, without even looking round. 
“ That wood’s full of them.” 

“ But aren’t you going to run and help her? ” 
Ali«e asked, very much surprised at his taking 
it so quietly. 

"No use, no use! ” said the King. “ She 
runs so fearfully quick. You might as well try 
to catch a Bandersnatch! But I’ll make a 
memorandum about her, if you like. She’s a 
dear, good creature,” he repeated softly to 
himself, as he opened his memorandum- 
book. “ Do you spell ‘ creature ’ with a double 
‘ e ’? ” 

At this moment the Unicorn sauntered by 
them, with his hands in his pockets. “ I had 
the best of it this time? ” he said to the King, 
just glancing at him as he passed. 

“ A little — a little,” the King replied, rather 
nervously. “ You shouldn’t have run him 
through with your horn, you know.” 

“ It didn’t hurt him,” the Unicom said care- 
lessly, and he was going on, when his eye hap- 
pened to fall upon Alice; he turned round in- 


134 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


stantly, and stood for some time looking at her 
with an air of the deepest disgust. 

“ What — is — this? ” he said at last. 

“ This is a child! ” Haigha replied eagerly, 
coming in front of Alice to introduce her, and 
spreading out both his hands toward her in an 
Anglo-Saxon attitude. “ We only found it to- 
day. It’s as large as life, and twice as natural! ” 
“ I always thought they were fabulous mon- 
sters! ” said the Unicom. “ Is it alive? ” 

“ It can talk,” said Haigha solemnly. 

The Unicom looked dreamily at Alice, and 
said, “ Talk, child! ” 

Alice could not help her lips curling up into 
a smile as she began: “ Do you know, I always 
thought Unicorns were fabulous monsters, too! 
I never saw one alive before! ” 

"Well, now that we have seen each other,” 
said the Unicom, “ if you’ll believe in me, I’ll 
believe in you. Is that a bargain? ” 

“ Yes, if you like,” said Alice. 

" Come, fetch out the plum-cake, old man! ” 
the Unicom went on, turning from her to the 


THE LION AND THE UNICORN. 


185 



King. “ None of your brown bread for 
me!” 

“ Certainly — certainly! ” the King muttered, 
and beckoned to Haigha. “ Open the bag! ” 


he whispered. “ Quick! Not that one — that's 
full of hay! ” 

Haigha took a large cake out of the bag, and 
gave it to Alice to hold, while he got out a 
dish and carving-knife. How they all came out 
of it Alice couldn't guess. It was just like 
a conjuring trick, she thought. 


136 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


The Lion had joined them while this was go- 
ing on; he looked very tired and sleepy, and his 
eyes were half shut. “What’s this!” he said, 
blinking lazily at Alice, and speaking in a deep, 
hollow tone that sounded like the tolling of a 
great bell. 

“Ah, what is it, now?” the Unicom cried 
eagerly. “You’ll never guess! I couldn’t.” 

The Lion looked at Alice wearily. “Are 
you animal — or vegetable — or mineral?” he 
said, yawning at every other word. 

“ It’s a fabulous monster! ” the Unicorn cried 
out, before Alice could reply. 

“ Then hand round the plum-cake, Mon- 
ster,” the Lion said, lying down and putting 
his chin on his paws. “And sit down, both 
of you” (to the King and the Unicorn); “fair 
play with the cake, you know! ” 

The King was evidently very uncomfortable 
at having to sit down between the two great 
creatures; but there was no other place for 
him. 

“ What a fight we might have for the crown, 


THE LION AND THE UNICORN. 137 

now!" the Unicorn said, looking slyly up at 
the crown, which the poor King was nearly 
shaking off his head, he was trembling so 
much. 

"I should win easy,” said the Lion. 

“ I’m not so sure of that,” said the Unicorn. 

“Why, I beat you all round the town, you 
chicken! ” the Lion replied angrily, half get- 
ting up as he spoke. 

Here the King interrupted, to prevent the 
quarrel going on; he was very nervous, and his 
voice quite quivered. “ All round the town? ” 
he said. “ That’s a good long way. Did you 
go by the old bridge, or the market-place? 
You get the best view by the old bridge.” 

“ I’m sure I don’t know,” the Lion growled 
out as he lay down again. “ There was too 
much dust to see anything. What a time the 
Monster is, cutting up that cake! ” 

Alice had seated herself on the bank of a 
little brook, with the great dish on her knees, 
and was sawing away diligently with the knife. 
u It’s very provoking! ” she said, in reply to the 


138 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


Lion (she was getting quite used to being called 
“the Monster”). “Fve cut several slices al- 
ready, hut they always join on again! ” 

“ You don’t know how t* manage Looking- 
glass cakes,” the Unicom remarked. “Hand 
it round first, and cut it afterward.” 

This sounded nonsense, but Alice very obedi- 
ently got up, and carried the dish round, and 
the cake divided itself into three pieces as she 
did so. “ Now cut it up,” said the Lion, as she 
returned to her place with the empty dish. 

“ I say, this isn’t fair! ” cried the Unicorn, 
as Alice sat with the knife in her hand, very 
much puzzled how to begin. “ The Monster 
has given the Lion twice as much as me! ” 

“ She’s kept none for herself, anyhow,” said 
the Lion. “Do you like plum-cake. Mon- 
ster? ” 

But, before Alice could answer him, the 
drums began. 

Where the noise came from she couldn’t make 
out; the air seemed full of it, and it rang 
through and through her head till she felt quite 


THE LION AND THE UNICORN. 


139 


deafened. She started to her feet and sprang 
across the little brook in terror, 

* * * * * 
and had just time to see the Lion and the 
Unicom rise to their feet, with angry looks at 
being interrupted in their feast, before she 
dropped to her knees, and put her hands over 
her ears, vainly trying to shut out the dreadful 
uproar. 

“ If that doesn’t c drum them out of town/ ” 
she thought to herself, “ nothing ever will I ” 


CHAPTER VIII. 


" it’s my own invention.” 

After a while the noise seemed gradually 
to die away, till all was dead silence, and Alice 
lifted up her head in some alarm. There was 
no one to be seen, and her first thought was that 
she must have been dreaming about the Lion 
and the Unicom and those queer Anglo-Saxon 
Messengers. However, there was the great dish 
still lying at her feet, on which she had tried 
to cut the plum-cake. “ So I wasn’t dreaming, 
after all,” she said to herself, “ unless — unless 
we’re all part of the same dream. Only I do 
hope it’s my dream, and not the lied King’s! 
I don’t like belonging to another person’s 
dream,” she went on in a rather complaining 
tone; “ I’ve a great mind to go and wake him, 
and see what happens! ” 


240 


HI 


“it’s my own invention.” 

At this moment her thoughts were inter- 
rupted by a loud shouting of “ Ahoy ! ahoy ! 
Check ! ” and a Knight dressed in crimson 
armor came galloping down upon her, brand- 
ishing a great club. Just as he reached her, 
the horse stopped suddenly. “ You’re mj 
prisoner ! ” the Knight cried, as he tumbled 
off his horse. 

Startled as she was, Alice was more fright- 
ened for him than for herself at the moment, 
and watched him with some anxiety as he 
mounted again. As soon as he was comfort- 
ably in the saddle, he began once more, 

“ You’re my •” but here another voice broke 

in “ Ahoy ! ahoy ! Check ! ” and Alice looked 
round in some surprise for the new enemy. 

This time it was a White Knight. He drew 
up at Alice’s side, and tumbled off his horse 
just as the Red Knight had done ; then he got 
on again, and the two Knights sat and looked 
at each other for some time without speaking. 
Alice looked from one to the other in some be- 
wilderment. 


142 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


“ She’s my prisoner, you know! ” the Red 
Knight said at last. 

“ Yes; but then I came and rescued her! ” 
the White Knight replied. 

“ Well, we must fight for her, then,” said the 
Red Knight, as he took up his helmet (which 
hung from the saddle, and was something the 
shape of a horse’s head), and put it on. 

“ You will observe the Rules of Battle, of 
course?” the White Knight remarked, putting 
on his helmet, too. 

“ I always do,” said the Red Knight, and 
they began banging away at each other with 
such fury that Alice got behind a tree to be 
out of the way of the blows. 

“I wonder, now, what the Rules of Battle 
are,” she said to herself, as she watched the 
fight, timidly peeping out from her hiding- 
place; “one Rule seems to he that, if one 
Knight hits the other, he knocks him of? 
his horse, and if he misses, he tumbles off him- 
self — and another rule seems to be that they 
hold their clubs with their arms, as if they were 


"IT'S MT OWN INVENTION.” 


143 


Punch and Judy. What a noise they make 
when they tumble! Just like a whole set of 
fire-irons falling into the fender! And how 
quiet the horses are! They let them get on and 
off them just as if they were tables! ” 

Another Rule of Battle, that Alice had not 
noticed, seemed to be that they always fell on 
their heads, and the battle ended with their 
both falling off in this way, side by side; when 
they got up again, they shook hands, and 
then the Red Knight mounted and galloped 
off. 

“ It was a glorious victory, wasn’t it? ” said 
the White Knight, as he came up panting. 

“ I don’t know,” Alice said doubtfully. “ I 
don’t want to be anybody’s prisoner. I want 
to be a Queen.” 

“ So you will when you’ve crossed the next 
brook,” said the White Knight. “ I’ll see you 
safe to the end of the wood — and then I must 
go back, you know. That’s the end of my 
move.” 

“ Thank you very much,” said Alice. “ May 


144 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


I help you off with your helmet? ” It was evi- 
dently more than he could manage by himself; 
however, she managed to shake him out of it 
at last. 

“Now one can breathe more easily,” said 
the Knight, putting back his shaggy hair with 
both hands, and turning his gentle face and 
large mild eyes to Alice. She thought she had 
never seen such a strange-looking soldier in all 
her life. 

He was dressed in tin armor, which seemed 
to fit him very badly, and he had a queer-shaped 
little deal box fastened across his shoulders, 
upside down, and with the lid hanging open. 
Alice looked at it with great curiosity. 

“ I see you’re admiring my little box,” the 
Knight said in a friendly tone. “ It’s my own 
invention — to keep clothes and sandwiches in. 
You see I carry it upside down, so that the rain 
can’t get in.” 

“But the things can get out ,” Alice gently 
remarked. “ Do you know the lid’s open? ” 

“ I didn’t know it,” the Knight said, a shade 


145 


“ it’s my own invention.” 

of vexation passing over his face. “ Then all 
the things must have fallen out! And the hox 
is no use without them.” He unfastened it as 
he spoke, and was just going to throw it into 
the bushes, when a sudden thought seemed to 
strike him, and he hung it carefully on a tree. 
“ Can you guess why I did that? ” he said to 
Alice. 

Alice shook her head. 

“ In hopes some bees may make a nest in it 
— then I should get the honey.” 

“ But you’ve got a bee-hive — or something 
like one — fastened to the saddle,” said Alice. 

“ Yes, it’s a very good bee-hive,” the Knight 
said in a discontented tone, “one of the best 
kind. But not a single bee has come near it 
yet. And the other thing is a mouse-trap. I 
suppose the mice keep the bees out — or the bees 
keep the mice out, I don’t know which.” 

“I was wondering what the mouse-trap was 
for,” said Alice. “It isn’t very likely there 
would be any mice on the horse’s back.” 

“ Not very likely perhaps,” said the Knight; 


146 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


“but, if they do come, I don’t choose to have 
them running all about.” 

“ You see,” he went on after a pause, “ it’s as 
well to be provided for everything. That’s the 
reason the horse has all those anklets round his 
feet.” 

“ But what are they for? ” Alice asked in a 
tone of great curiosity. 

“ To guard against the bites of sharks,” the 
Knight replied. “ It’s an invention of my own. 
And now help me on. I’ll go with you to the 
end of the wood. What’s that dish for? ” 

“ It’s meant for plum-cake,” said Alice. 

“We’d better take it with us,” the Knight 
said. “It ’ll come in handy if we find any 
plum-cake. Help me to get it into this bag.” 

This took a long time to manage, though 
Alice held the bag open very carefully, because 
the Knight was so very awkward in putting in 
the dish; the first two or three times that he 
tried he fell in himself instead. “ It’s rather a. 
tight fit, you see,” he said, as they got it in at 
last; “there are so many candlesticks in the 


147 


"it’s my own invention.” 

bag.” And he hung it to the saddle, which was 
already loaded with bunches of carrots, and fire- 
irons, and many other things. 

“ I hope you’ve got your hair well fastened 
on ?” he continued, as they set off. 

“ Only in the usual way,” Alice said, smiling. 

“ That’s hardly enough,” he said anxiously. 
“ You see the wind is so very strong here. It’s 
as strong as soup.” 

“ Have you invented a plan for keeping the 
hair from being blown off? ” Alice inquired. 

“ Not yet,” said the Knight. “ But I’ve got 
a plan for keeping it from falling off.” 

“ I should like to hear it very much.” 

“ First you take an upright stick,” said the 
Knight. “ Then you make your hair creep up 
it, like a fruit tree. Now the reason hair falls 
off is because it hangs down — things never fall 
upward, you know. It’s a plan of my own in- 
vention. You may try it if you like.” 

It didn’t sound a comfortable plan, Alice 
thought, and for a few minutes she walked on 
in silence, puzzling over the idea, and every 


148 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


bow and then stopping to help the poor Knight, 
who certainly was not a good rider. 

Whenever the horse stopped (which it did 
very often), he fell off in front; and, whenever 
it went on again (which it generally did rather 
suddenly), he fell off behind. Otherwise he 
kept on pretty well, except that he had a habit 
of now and then falling off sideways; and 
as he generally did this on the side on which 
Alice was walking, she soon found that it 
was the best plan not to walk quite close to 
the horse. 

“I’m afraid you’ve not had much practice 
in riding,” she ventured to say, as she was help- 
ing him up from his fifth tumble. 

The Knight looked very much surprised, and 
a little offended at the remark. “ What makes 
you say that? ” he asked, as he scrambled back 
into the saddle, keeping hold of Alice’s hair 
with one hand, to save himself from falling over 
on the other side. 

“ Because people don’t fall off quite so often, 
when they’ve had much practice.” 


“it’s my own invention.” 149 

“ Fve had plenty of practice,” the Knight 
said very gravely — “ plenty of practioe! ” 

Alice could think of nothing better to say 
than, “ Indeed?” but she said it as heartily as 
she could. They went on a little way in silence 
after this, the Knight with his eyes shut, mut- 
tering to himself, and Alice watching anxiously 
for the next tumble. 

“ The great art of riding,” the Knight sud- 
denly began in a loud voice, waving his right 

arm as he spoke, “is to keep ” Here the 

sentence ended as suddenly as it had begun, as 
the Knight fell heavily on the top of his head 
exactly in the path where Alice was walking. 
She was quite frightened this time, and said, 
in an anxious tone, as she picked him up, “ I 
hope no bones are broken? ” 

“ None to speak of,” the Knight said, as if 
he didn’t mind breaking two or three of them. 
u The great art of riding, as I was saying, is 
— to keep your balance properly. Like this, 
you know ” 

He let go the bridle, and stretched out both 


150 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


his arms to show Alice what he meant, and 
this time he fell flat on his hack, right under 
the horse’s feet. 

“ Plenty of practice! ” he went on repeating. 



all the time that Alice was getting him on his 
feet again. “ Plenty of practice!” 

“It's too ridiculous! ” cried Alice, losing all 
her patience this time. “You ought to have 
a wooden horse on wheels, that you ought! ” 


151 


“it’s my own invention.” 

“ Does that kind go smoothly? ” the Knight 
asked in a tone of great interest, clasping his 
arms round the horse’s neck as he spoke, just 
in time to save himself from tumbling off 
again. 

“Much more smoothly than a live horse,” 
Alice said, with a little scream of laughter, in 
spite of all she could do to prevent it. 

“ I’ll get one,” the Knight said thoughtfully 
to himself. “ One or two — several.” 

There was a short silence after this, and then 
the Knight went on again. “ I’m a great hand 
at inventing things. Now, I dare say you 
noticed, the last time you picked me up, that J 
was looking rather thoughtful? ” 

“ You were a little grave,” said Alice. 

“ Well, just then I was inventing a new way 
of getting over a gate. Would you like to 
hear it? ” 

“ Very much, indeed,” Alice said politely. 

“I’ll tell you how I came to think of it,” 
said the Knight. “ You see, I said to myself, 
* The only difficulty is with the feet; the head 


152 


THROUGH THE LOOKING- GLASS. 


is high enough already/ Now, first I put my 
head on top of the gate — then the head’s high 
enough — then I stand on my head — then the 
feet are high enough, you see — then I’m over, 
you see.” 

“Yes, I suppose you’d be over when that 
was done,” Alice said thoughtfully; “ but don’t 
you think it would be rather hard? ” 

“I haven’t tried it yet,” the Knight said 
gravely, “so I can’t tell for certain — but I’m 
afraid it would be a little hard.” 

He looked so vexed at the idea that Alice 
changed the subject hastily. “ What a curi- 
ous helmet you’ve got! ” she said cheerfully. 
“Is that your invention, too?” 

The Knight looked down proudly at his hel- 
met, which hung from the saddle. “ Yes,” he 
said; “ but I’ve invented a better one than that 
— like a sugar-loaf. When I used to wear it, if I 
fell off the horse, it always touched the ground 
directly. So I had a very little way to fall, you 
see. But there was the danger of falling into 
it, to be sure. That happened to me once— 


153 


“it's my own invention.” 

and the worst of it was, before I could get 
out again, the other White Knight came 
and put it on. He thought it was his own 
helmet.” 

The Knight looked so solemn about it that 
Alice did not dare to laugh. “ Fm afraid you 
must have hurt him,” she said in a trembling 
voice, “ being on the top of his head.” 

“ I had to kick him, of course,” the Knight 
said very seriously. “ And then he took the 
helmet off again — but it took hours and hours 
to get me out. I was as fast as — as lightning, 
you know.” 

“But that’s a different kind of fastness,” 
Alice objected. 

The Knight shook his head. “It was all 
kinds of fastness with me, I can assure you ! ” 
he said. He raised his hands in some excite- 
ment as he said this, and instantly rolled out 
of the saddle, and fell headlong into a deep 
ditch. 

Alice ran to the side of the ditch to look for 
him. She was rather startled by the fall, as 


154 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


for some time he had kept on very well, and she 
was afraid that he really was hurt this time. 
However, though she could see nothing hut the 
soles of his feet, she was much relieved to hear 
that he was talking on in his usual tone. “ All 
kinds of fastness/’ he repeated; “but it was 
careless of him to put another man’s helmet on 
— with the man in it, too.” 

“ How can you go on talking so quietly, head 
downward?” Alice asked, as she dragged him 
out by the feet, and laid him in a heap on the 
bank. 

The Knight looked surprised at the ques- 
tion. “What does it matter where my body 
happens to be?” he said. “My mind goes 
on working all the same. In fact, the more 
head downward I am, the more I keep invent- 
ing new things. 

“ Now the cleverest thing of the sort that I 
ever did,” he went on after a pause, “ was in* 
venting a new pudding during the meat 
course.” 

“In time to have it cooked for the next 


155 


“it’s my own invention.” 

course?” said Alice. “Well, that was quick 
work, certainly! ” 

“Well, not the next course,” the Knight 
said in a slow, thoughtful tone; “ no, certainly 
not the next course .” 

“ Then it would have to he the next day. I 
suppose you wouldn’t have two pudding courses 
in one dinner? ” 

“Well, not the next day,” the Knight re- 
peated as before; “ not the next day. In fact,” 
he went on, holding his head down, and his 
voice getting lower and lower, “ I don’t believe 
that pudding ever was cooked! In fact, I don’t 
believe that pudding ever will be cooked! And 
yet it was a very clever pudding to invent.” 

“What did you mean it to be made of?” 
Alice asked, hoping to cheer him up; for the 
poor Knight seemed quite low-spirited about it. 

“ It began with blotting-paper,” the Knight 
answered with a groan. 

“That wouldn’t be very nice, I’m afraid.” 

“ Not very nice alone ,” he interrupted, quite 
eagerly; “ but you’ve no idea what a difference 


156 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


it makes, mixing it with other things — such as 
gunpowder and sealing-wax. And here I must 
leave you.” They had just come to the end of 
the wood. 

Alice could only look puzzled; she wai 
thinking of the pudding. 

“ You are sad,” the Knight said in an anx- 
ious tone ; “ let me sing you a song to comfort 
you.” 

“ Is it very long ? ” Alice asked, for she had 
heard a good deal of poetry that day. 

“ It’s long,” said the Knight, “ but it’s very, 
very beautiful. Everybody that hears me sing 
it — either it brings the tears into their eyes, or 
else ” 

“ Or else what ? ” said Alice, for the Knight 
had made a sudden pause. 

“ Or else it doesn’t, you know. The name of 
the song is called ‘Haddock's Eyes.’” 

“ Oh, that’s the name of the song, is it ? ” 
Alice said, trying to feel interested. 

“No, you don’t understand,” the Knight 
said, looking a little vexed. “ That’s what the 


“it’s my own invention.” 157 

name is called . The name really is ‘ The Aged, 
Aged Man .’ ” 

“ Then I ought to have said, * That’s what 
the song is called’?” Alice corrected herself. 

" No, you oughtn’t; that’s quite another 
thing! The song is called ‘ Ways and Means 
but that’s only what it’s called , you know! ” 

"Well, what is the song, then?” said Alice, 
who was, by this time, completely bewildered. 

"I was coming to that,” the Knight said. 
"The song really is ‘ A-sitting on a Gate’; 
and the tune’s my own invention.” 

So saying he stopped his horse and let the 
reins fall on its neck; then, slowly beating time 
with one hand, and with a faint smile lighting 
up his gentle, foolish face, as if he enjoyed the 
music of his song, he began. 

Of all the strange things that Alice saw in 
her journey Through The Looking-Glass, this 
was the one that she always remembered most 
clearly. Years afterward she could bring the 
whole scene back again, as if it had been only 
yesterday — the mild blue eyes and kindly smile 


158 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


of the Knight — the setting sun gleaming 
through his hair, and shining on his armor in 
a blaze of light that quite dazzled her — the 
horse quietly moving about, with the reins 
hanging loose on his neck, cropping the grass 
at her feet — and the black shadows of the for- 
est behind — all this she took in like a picture, 
as, with one hand shading her eyes, she leant 
against a tree, watching the strange pair, and 
listening, in a half dream, to the melancholy 
music of the song. 

“ But the tune isn't his own invention,” she 
said to herself; “it’s ‘ I give thee all , I can no 
more ' ” She stood and listened very atten- 
tively, but no tears came into her eyes. 

“ I’ll tell thee everything I can ; 

There’s little to relate. 

I saw an aged, aged man, 

A-sitting on a gate. 

* Who are you, aged man ? ' I said. 

* And how is it you live ? ’ 

And his answer trickled through my head 
Like water through a sieve. 


“it’s my own invention.” 

'* He said, 4 1 look for butterflies 
That sleep among the wheat j 
I make them into mutton pies, 

And sell them in the street. 

I sell them unto men,’ he said, 

* Who sail on stormy seas ; 

And that’s the way I get my bread — 

A trifle, if you please.’ 


* But I was thinking of a plan 
To dye one’s whiskers green j 
And always use so large a fan 
That they could not be seen. 

80 , having no reply to give 
To what the old man said, 

I cried, 4 Come, tell me how you live 1 ’ 
And thumped him on the head. 


M His accents mild itx>k up the tale : 

He said, 4 1 go my ways, 

And when I find a mountain-rill, 

I set it in a blaze ; 

And thence they make a stuff they call 
Rowlands’ Macassar Oil — 

Yet twopence halfpenny is all 
They give me for my toil/ 


1 


160 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GJ ASS. 


“ But I was thinking of a way 
To feed one’s self on batter. 

And so go on from day to day 
Getting a little fatter. 

I shook him well from side to side. 
Until his face was blue : 

* Come, tell me how you live,’ I cried, 

* And what it is you do ! ’ 

" He said, * I hunt for haddocks’ eyes 
Among the heather bright, 

And work them into waistcoat buttons 
In the silent night. 

And these I do not sell for gold 
Or coin of silvery shine, 

But for a copper halfpenny, 

And that will purchase nine, 

** * I sometimes dig for buttered rolls, 

Or set limed twigs for crabs ; 

I sometimes search the grassy knolls 
For wheels of Hansom cabs. 

And that’s the way ’ (he gave a wink) 

* By which I get my wealth — 

And very gladly will I drink 

Tour Honor’s noble health/ 


“it’s my own invention.” 

I heard him then, for I had just 
Completed my design 
To keep the Menai bridge from rust 
By boiling it in wine. 

I thanked him much for telling me 
The way he got his wealth, 

But chiefly for his wish that he 
Might drink my noble health. 


'• And now, if e’er by chance I put 
My fingers into glue, 

Or madly squeeze a right-hand foot 
Into a left-hand shoe, 

Or if I drop upon my toe 
A very heavy weight, 

I weep, for it reminds me so 
Of that old man I used to know— 

Whose look was mild, whose speech was slow 
Whose hair was whiter than the snow. 

Whose face was very like a crow, 

With eyes, like cinders, all aglow, 

Who seemed distracted with his woe. 

Who rocked his body to and fro, 

And muttered mumblingly and low. 

As if his mouth were full of dough, 

Who snorted like a buffalo— 


161 


162 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


That summer evening, long ago, 

A-sitting on a gate.” 

As the Knight sang the last words of the 
ballad, he gathered up the reins, and turned 
his horse’s head along the road by which they 
had come. “ You’ve only a few yards to go,” 
he said, “down the hill and over that little 
brook, and then you’ll he a Queen. But you’ll 
stay and see me off first? ” he added, as Alice 
turned with an eager look in the direction to 
which he pointed. “ I shan’t he long. You’ll 
wait and wave your handkerchief when I get 
to that turn in the road? I think it ’ll encour- 
age me, you see.” 

“ Of course I’ll wait,” said Alice; “ and thank 
you very much for coming so far — and for the 
song — I liked it very much.” 

“I hope so,” the Knight said doubtfully; 
“ but you didn’t cry so much as I thought you 
would.” 

So they shook hands, and then the Knight 
rode slowly away into the forest. “ It won’t 
take long to see him off , I expect,” Alice said 


163 


m it 7 s my own invention.” 

to herself, as she stood watching him. “ There 
he goes! Bight on his head, as usual! How- 
ever, he get* on again pretty easily — that comes 



of having so many things hung round the 
horse.” So she went on talking to herself, as 
she watched the horse walking leisurely along 
the road, and the Knight tumbling off, first oa 


164 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


one side and then on the other. After the 
fourth or fifth tumble he reached the turn, and 
then she waved her handkerchief to him, and 
waited till he was out of sight. 

“ I hope it encouraged him,” she said, as she 
turned to run down the hill; “ and now for the 
last brook, and to he a Queen! How grand it 
sounds! ” A very few steps brought her to the 
edge of the brook. “ The Eighth Square at 
last! ” she cried as she bounded across, 

* * * * * 
and threw herself down to rest on a lawn as soft 
as moss, with little flowerbeds dotted about it 
here and there. “ Oh, how glad I am to get 
here! And what is this on my head? ” she ex- 
claimed in a tone of dismay, as she put her 
hands up to something very heavy, that fitted 
tight all round her head. 

“ But how can it have got there without my 
knowing it? ” she said to herself, as she lifted 
it off, and set it on her lap to make out what 
it could possibly be. 

It was a golden crown. 


CHAPTER IX. 


QUEEN ALICE. 

“Well, this is grand!” said Alice. “I 
never expected I should be a Queen so soon — 
and Fll tell you what it is, your Majesty,” she 
went on in a severe tone (she was always rather 
fond of scolding herself), “it ’ll never do for 
you to he lolling about on the grass like that! 
Queens have to he dignified, you know! ” 

So she got up and walked about — rather 
stiffly at first, as she was afraid that the crown 
might come off; but she comforted herself with 
the thought that there was nobody to see her, 
“ and if I really am a Queen,” she said as she 
sat down again, “ I shall be able to manage it 
quite well in time.” 

Everything was happening so oddly that she 
didn’t feel a bit surprised at finding the Red 

165 


166 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


Queen and the White Queen sitting close to her, 
one on each side; she would have liked very 
much to ask them how they came there, hut she 
feared it would not be quite civil. However, 
there would be no harm, she thought, in ask- 
ing if the game was over. “ Please, would you 

tell me ” she began, looking timidly at the 

Red Queen. 

“ Speak when you’re spoken to! ” the Queen 
sharply interrupted her. 

“ But if everybody obeyed that rule,” said 
Alice, who was always ready for a little argu- 
ment, “ and if you only spoke when you were 
spoken to, and the other person always waited 
for you to begin, you see nobody would ever say 
anything, so that •” 

“ Ridiculous! ” cried the Queen. “Why, 

don’t you see, child ” Here she broke off 

with a frown, and, after thinking for a minute, 
suddenly changed the subject of the conversa- 
tion. “ What do you mean by c If you really 
are a Queen’? What right have you to call 
yourself so? You can’t be a Queen, you know. 


QUEEN ALICE. 167 

till you’ve passed the proper examination. And 
the sooner we begin it, the better.” 

“ I only said ‘ if ’! ” poor Alice pleaded in a 
piteous tone. 

The two Queens looked at each other, and 
the Red Queen remarked, with a little shud- 
der, “ She says she only said, ‘ if.’ ” 

“ But she said a great deal more than 
that! ” the White Queen moaned, wringing 
her hands. “ Oh, ever so much more than 
that! ” 

“So you did, you know,” the Red Queen 
said to Alice. “ Always speak the truth — think 
before you speak — and write it down after- 
ward.” 

“ I’m sure I didn’t mean ” Alice was be- 

ginning, hut the Red Queen interrupted her 
impatiently. 

“ That’s just what I complain of! You 
should have meant! What do you suppose is 
the use of a child without any meaning? Even 
a joke should have some meaning — and a child’s 
more important than a joke, I hope. You 


168 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


couldn’t deny that, even if you tried with both 
hands.” 

“ I don’t deny things with my hands,” Alice 
objected. 

“ Nobody said you did,” said the Red Queen. 
“ I said you couldn’t if you tried.” 

“ She’s in that state of mind,” said the White 
Queen, “that she wants to deny something — 
only she doesn’t know what to deny! ” 

“A nasty, vicious temper,” the Red Queen 
remarked; and then there was an uncomfortable 
silence for a minute or two. 

The Red Queen broke the silence by saying 
to the White Queen, “ I invite you to Alice’s 
dinner-party this afternoon.” 

The White Queen smiled feebly, and said, 
“ And I invite you” 

“ I didn’t know I was to have a party at all,” 
said Alice; “ but if there is to be one, I think 
I ought to invite the guests.” 

“We gave you the opportunity of doing it,” 
the Red Queen remarked; “but I dare say 
you’ve not had many lessons in manners yet.” 


QUEEN ALICE. 


169 


u Manners are not taught in lessons/’ said 
Alice. “ Lessons teach you to do sums, and 
things of that sort.” 

“Can you do Addition?” the White Queen 
asked. “ What’s one and one and one and one 



and one and one and one and one and one and 
one?” 

“ I don’t know,” said Alice. “ I lost count.” 

“ She can’t do Addition,” the Red Queen in- 
terrupted. “Can you do Subtraction? Take 
nine from eight.” 

“ Nine from eight I can’t, you know,” Alice 


170 THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


“ She can’t do Subtraction/’ said the White 
Queen. “ Can you do Division? Divide a 
loaf by a knife — what’s the answer to that? ” 

“ I suppose ” Alice was beginning, but 

the Eed Queen answered for her. “ Bread and 
butter, of course. Try another Subtraction 
sum. Take a bone from a dog; what re- 
mains? ” 

Alice considered. “The bone wouldn’t re- 
main, of course, if I took it — and the dog 
wouldn’t remain; it would come to bite me — 
and I’m sure I shouldn’t remain! ” 

“Then you think nothing would remain?” 
said the Eed Queen. 

“ I think that’s the answer.” 

“Wrong, as usual,” said the Eed Queen; 
“ the dog’s temper would remain.” 

“ But I don’t see how ” 

“ Why, look here! ” the Eed Queen cried: 
“ The dog would lose its temper, wouldn’t it? ” 
“ Perhaps it would,” Alice replied cau- 
tiously. 

“ Then if the dog went away, its temper 


QUEEN ALICE. 171 

would remain! ” the Queen exclaimed trium- 
phantly. 

Alice said, as gravely as she could, “ They 
might go different ways.” But she couldn’t 
help thinking to herself, “ What dreadful non- 
sense we are talking! ” 

" She can’t do sums a bit! ” the Queens said 
together, with great emphasis. 

" Can you do sums? ” Alice said, turning sud- 
denly on the White Queen, for she didn’t like 
being found fault with so much. 

The Queen gasped and shut her eyes. " I 
can do Addition,” she said, " if you give me 
time — but I can’t do Subtraction under any 
circumstances! ” 

" Of course you know your ABC?” said the 
Red Queen. 

" To be sure I do,” said Alice. 

"So do I,” the White Queen whispered; 
"we’ll often say it over together, dear. And 
I’ll tell you a secret — I can read words of one 
letter! Isn’t that grand? However, don’t be 
discouraged. You’ll come to it in time.” 


172 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


Here the Red Queen began again. “Can 
you answer useful questions? ” she said. “ How 
is bread made ? 99 

“ I know that! ” Alice cried eagerly. “ You 
take some flour ” 

“ Where do you pick the flower ? 99 the White 
Queen asked. “ In a garden, or in the 
hedges? ” 

“ Well, it isn’t picked at all,” Alice explained; 
“it’s ground 99 

“How many acres of ground?” said the 
White Queen. “You mustn’t leave out so 
many things.” 

“ Fan her head! ” the Red Queen anxiously 
interrupted. “ She’ll he feverish after so much 
thinking.” So they set to work and fanned her 
with hunches of leaves, till she had to beg them 
to leave off, it blew her hair about so. 

“ She’s all right again, now,” said the Red 
Queen. “Do you know languages? What’s 
the French for fiddle-de-dee? ” 

“ Fiddle-de-dee’s not English,” Alice replied 
gravely. 


QUEEN ALICE. 


173 


* f Who ever said it was? ” said the Red Queen. 

Alice thought she saw a way out of the diffi- 
culty this time. “ If you’ll tell me what lan- 
guage * fiddle-de-dee ’ is, I’ll tell you the French 
for it ! 99 she exclaimed triumphantly. 

But the Red Queen drew herself up rather 
stiffly, and said, “ Queens never make bar- 
gains.” 

“ I wish Queens never asked questions,” Alice 
thought to herself. 

“ Don’t let us quarrel!” the White Queen 
said in an anxious tone. “ What is the cause 
of lightning?” 

“The cause of lightning,” Alice said very 
decidedly, for she felt quite certain about this, 
“ is the thunder — no, no! ” she hastily corrected 
herself. “I meant the other way.” 

“It’s too late to correct it,” said the Red 
Queen; “ when you’ve once said a thing, that 
fixes it, and you must take the consequences.” 

“ Which reminds me,” the White Queen said, 
looking down and nervously clasping and un- 
clasping her hands, “we had such a thunder- 


174 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


storm last Tuesday — I mean one of the last 
set of Tuesdays, you know.” 

Alice was puzzled. “In our country,” she 
remarked, “ there’s only one day at a time.” 

The Red Queen said: “ That’s a poor thin way 
of doing things. Now here , we mostly have 
days and nights two or three at a time, and 
sometimes in winter we take as many 
as five nights together — for warmth, you 
know.” 

“Are five nights warmer than one night, 
then?” Alice ventured to ask. 

“ Five times as warm, of course.” 

“But they should be five times as cold, by 
the same rule ” 

“Just so!” cried the Red Queen. “Five 
times as warm, and five times as cold — just as 
I’m five times as rich as you are, and five times 
as clever! ” 

Alice sighed and gave it up. “ It’s exactly 
like a riddle with no answer! ” she thought. 

“Humpty Dumpty saw it, too,” the White 
Queen went on in a low voice, more as if she 


QUEEN ALICE. 


175 


were talking to herself. “ He came 10 the door 
with a corkscrew in his hand ” 

“ What did he want? ” said the Red Queen. 

“He said he would come in,” the White 
Queen went on, “ because he was looking for a 
hippopotamus. Now, as it happened, there 
wasn't such a thing in the house, that morning.” 

“ Is there generally?” Alice asked in an 
astonished tone. 

“ Well, only on Thursdays,” said the Queen. 

“ I know what he came for,” said Alice; “ he 
wanted to punish the fish, because ” 

Here the White Queen began again. "It 
was such a thunderstorm, you can't think! ” 
(“ She never could, you know,” said the Red 
Queen.) “ And part of the roof came off, and 
ever so much thunder got in — and it went 
rolling round the room in great lumps — and 
knocking over the tables and things — till I was 
go frightened I couldn't remember my own 
name! ” 

Alice thought to herself, "I never should 
try to remember my name in the middle of azi 


176 THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 

accident! Where would be the use of it?* 
but she did not say this aloud, for fear of hurt- 
ing the poor Queen’s feelings. 

“Your Majesty must excuse her,” the Red 
Queen said to Alice, taking one of the White 
Queen’s hands in her own, and gently strok- 
ing it; “she means well, but she can’t help 
saying foolish things, as a general rule.” 

The White Queen looked timidly at Alice, 
who felt she ought to say something kind, but 
really couldn’t think of anything at the 
moment. 

“ She never was really well brought up,” the 
Red Queen went on; “but it’s amazing how 
good-tempered she is! Pat her on the head, 
and see how pleased she’ll be! ” But this was 
more than Alice had courage to do. 

“A little kindness — and putting her hair 
in papers — would do wonders with her.” 

The White Queen gave a deep sigh, and laid 
her head on Alice’s shoulder. “I am so 
sleepy! ” she moaned. 

“She’s tired, poor thing!” said the Red 


QUEEN ALICE. 


m 


Queen. “ Smooth her hair — lend her your 
nightcap — and sing her a soothing lullaby.” 

“I haven’t got a nightcap with me,” said 
Alice, as she tried to obey the first direction; 
"and I don’t know any soothing lullabies.” 

"I must do it myself, then,” said the Red 
Queen, and she began: 

“ Hush-a-by lady, in Alice’s lap ! 

Till the feast’s ready, we've time for a nap. 

When the feast’s over, we’ll go to the ball — 

Red Queen, and White Queen, and Alice, and all l " 

"And now you know the words,” she added, 
as she put her head down on Alice’s other 
shoulder, "just sing it through to me. I’m 
getting sleepy, too.” In another moment both 
Queens were fast asleep, and snoring loud. 

“ What am I to do ? ” exclaimed Alice, look- 
ing about in great perplexity, as first one round 
head, and then the other, rolled down from her 
shoulder, and lay like a heavy lump in her lap. 
"I don’t think it ever happened before that 
anyone had to take care of two Queens asleep 


178 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


at once! No, not in all the History of Eng- 
land — it couldn’t, you know, because there 
never was more than one Queen at a time. Do 
wake up, you heavy things! ” she went on in an 
impatient tone; hut there was no answer but a 
gentle snoring. 

The snoring got more distinct every minute, 
and sounded more like a tune; at last she could 
even make out words, and she listened so 
eagerly that, when the two great heads sud- 
denly vanished from her lap, she hardly missed 
them. 

She was standing before an arched doorway 
over which were the words QUEEN ALICE in 
large letters, and on each side of the arch there 
was a hell-handle; one was marked “ Visitors’ 
Bell,” the other “ Servants’ Bell.” 

“ I’ll wait till the song’s over,” thought Alice, 
“ and then I’ll ring the — the — which bell must 
I ring? ” she went on, very much puzzled by the 
names. “ I’m not a visitor, and I’m not a serv- 
ant. There ought to be one marked ‘ Queen/ 
you know.” 


QUEEN ALICE. 


179 


Just then the door opened a little way, and 
a creature with a long beak put its head out for 
a moment and said, “No admittance till the 
week after next! ” and shut the door again with 
a bang. 

Alice knocked and rang in vain for a long 
time, but at last a very old Frog, who was sit- 
ting under a tree, got up end hobbled slowly 
toward her. He was dressed in bright yellow, 
and had enormous boots on. 

“ What is it, now? ” the Frog said in a deep 
hoarse whisper. 

Alice turned round, ready to find fault with 
anybody. “ Where’s the servant whose busi- 
ness it is to answer the door?” she began 
angrily. 

“Which door?” said the Frog. 

Alice almost stamped with irritation at the 
slow drawl in which he spoke. “ This door, of 
course! ” 

The Frog looked at the door with his large 
dull eyes for a minute; then he went nearer and 
rubbed it with his thumb, as if he were trying 


180 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


whether the paint would come off; then he 
looked at Alice. 

“ To answer the door? ” he said. “ What’s 
it been asking of?” He was so hoarse that 
Alice could scarcely hear him. 

“ I don’t know what you mean/’ she said. 
“ I speaks English, doesn’t I? ” the Frog went 
on. “ Or are you deaf? What did it ask you? ” 
“ Nothing! ” Alice said impatiently. “ I’ve 
been knocking at it! ” 

“ Shouldn’t do that — shouldn’t do that,” 
the Frog muttered. “Wexes it, you know.” 
Then he went up and gave the door a kick with 
one of his great feet. “ You let it alone,” he 
panted out, as he hobbled back to his tree, 
“ and it ’ll let you alone, you know.” 

At this moment the door was flung open, and 
a shrill voice was heard singing: 

“ To the Looking-Glass world it was Alice that said, 

‘ I’ve a scepter in hand, I've a crown on my head ; 

Let the Looking-Glass creatures, whatever they be. 
Come and dine with the Red Queen, the White Queen! 
and me ! * " 


QUEEN ALICE. 


181 


And hundreds of voices joined in the chorus: 

“ Then fill up the glasses as quick as you can, 

And sprinkle the table with buttons and bran ; 

Put cats in the coffee, and mice in the tea — 

And welcome Queen Alice with thirty-times-three ! 5 

Then followed a confused noise of cheering, 
and Alice thought to herself, “ Thirty times 
three makes ninety. I wonder if anyone’s 
counting?” In a minute there was silence 
again, and the same shrill voice sang another 
verse: 

®‘‘0 Looking-Glass creatures,’ quoth Alice, ‘draw 
near ! 

'Tis an honor to see me, a favor to hear ; 

’Tis a privilege high to have dinner and tea 

Along with the Red Queen, the White Queen, and 
me!’” 

Then came the chorus again: 

9 * Then fill up the glasses with treacle and ink, 

Or anything else that is pleasant to drink ; 

Mix sand with the cider, and wool with the wine— 

And welcome Queen Alice with ninety-times-nine ! n 


182 


THBOUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


“ Ninety times nine ! 99 Alice repeated in de- 
spair. “ Oh, that ’ll never be done! I’d bet- 
ter go in at once.” And in she went, and 
there was a dead silence the moment she 
appeared. 

Alice glanced nervously along the table as 
she walked up the large hall, and noticed that 
there were about fifty guests, of all kinds; some 
were animals, some birds, and there were even 
a few flowers among them. “ I’m glad 
they’ve come without waiting to be asked,” she 
thought. “I should never have known who 
were the right people to invite! ” 

There were three chairs at the head of the 
table; the Red and White Queens had already 
taken two of them, but the middle one was 
empty. Alice sat down in it, rather uncom- 
fortable at the silence, and longing for some- 
one to speak. 

At last the Red Queen began. “ You’ve 
missed the soup and fish,” she said. “Put 
on the joint! ” And the waiters set a leg of 
mutton before Alice, who looked at it rather 


QUEEN ALICE. 


163 


anxiously, as she had never had to carve a joint 
before. 

“ You look a little shy; let me introduce you 
to that leg of mutton,” said the Red Queen: 
“ Alice — Mutton; Mutton — Alice.” The leg of 
mutton got up in the dish and made a little bow 
to Alice; and Alice returned the bow, not know- 
ing whether to be frightened or amused. 

“May I give you a slice?” she said, taking 
up the knife and fork, and looking from one 
Queen to the other. 

“Certainly not,” the Red Queen said, very 
decidedly; “it isn’t etiquette to cut anyone 
you’ve been introduced to. Remove the 
joint! ” And the waiters carried it off, and 
brought a large plum-pudding in its place. 

“I won’t be introduced to the pudding, 
please,” Alice said rather hastily, “or we 
shall get no dinner at all. May I give you 
some? ” 

But the Red Queen looked sulky, and 
growled, “ Pudding — Alice; Alice — Pudding. 
Remove the pudding! ” and the waiters took it 


184 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


away so quickly that Alice couldn't return ita 
bow. 

However, she didn't see why the Red Queen 
should he the only one to give orders, so, as an 
experiment, she called out, “ Waiter! bring back 
the pudding! " and there it was again in a mo- 
ment, like a conjuring trick. It was so large 
that she couldn’t help feeling a little shy with 
it, as she had been with the mutton; how- 
ever, she conquered her shyness by a great 
effort, and cut a slice and handed it to the Red 
Queen. 

“ What impertinence! " said the Pudding. 
“ I wonder how you'd like it, if I were to cut a 
slice out of you, you creature! " 

It spoke in a thick, suety sort of voice, and 
Alice hadn't a word to say in reply; she could 
only sit and look at it and gasp. 

“ Make a remark,” said the Red Queen; “ it’s 
ridiculous to leave all the conversation to the 
Pudding! ” 

“ Do you know, I’ve had such a quantity of 
poetry repeated to me to-day,” Alice began, a 


QUEEN ALICE. 


185 


little frightened at finding that, the moment 
she opened her lips, there was dead silence, and 
all eyes were fixed upon her; “ and it’s a very 
curious thing, I think — every poem was about 
fishes in some way. Do you know why they’re 
so fond of fishes, all about here? ” 

She spoke to the Red Queen, whose answer 
was a little wide of the mark. “ As to fishes,” 
she said, very slowly and solemnly, putting her 
mouth close to Alice’s ear, “ her White Majesty 
knows a lovely riddle — all in poetry — all about 
fishes. Shall she repeat it? ” 

“Her Red Majesty’s very kind to mention 
it,” the White Queen murmured into Alice’s 
other ear, in a voice like the cooing of a pigeon. 
“ It would be such a treat! May I? ” 

“ Please do,” Alice said very politely. 

The White Queen laughed with delight, and 
stroked Alice’s cheek. Then she began: 

“ ‘First, the fish must be caught.’ 

That is easy ; a baby, I think, could have caught it. 

‘ Next, the fish must be bought.’ 

That is easy ; a penny, I think, would have bought tt. 


186 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


“ * Now cook me the fish ! ’ 

That is easy, and will not take more than a minute. 

4 Let it lie in a dish ! ’ 

That is easy, because it already is in it. 

“ 4 Bring it here ! Let me sup ! * 

It is easy to set such a dish on the table. 

4 Take the dish-cover up ! ’ 

Ah, that is so hard that I fear I’m unable ! 

“ For it holds it like glue — 

Holds the lid to the dish, while it lies in the middle : 

Which is easiest to do, 

Un-dish-cover the fish, or dishcover the riddle ? ” 

~ Take a minute to think about it, and then 
guess,” said the Red Queen. “ Meanwhile we’ll 
drink your health. Queen Alice’s health! ” she 
screamed at the top of her voice, and all the 
guests began drinking it directly, and very 
queerly they managed it; some of them put 
their glasses upon their heads like extinguishers, 
and drank all that trickled down* their faces — 
others upset the decanters, and drank the wine 
as it ran off the edges of the table — and three 
ot them (who looked like kangaroos) scrambled 


QUEEN ▲LICE. 


187 


into the dish of roast mutton, and began eagerly 
lapping up the gravy. “Just like pigs in a 
trough! ” thought Alice. 

“You ought to return thanks in a neat 
speech,” the Bed Queen said, frowning at Alice 
as she spoke. 

“We must support you, you know,” the 
White Queen whispered, as Alice got up to do 
it, very obediently, but a little frightened. 

“ Thank you very much,” she whispered in 
reply, “but I can do quite well without.” 

“ That wouldn't b at all the thing,” the 
Red Queen said very decidedly; so Alice tried 
to submit to it with a good grace. 

(“And they did push so!” she said after- 
ward, when she was telling her sister the his- 
tory of the feast. “You would have thought 
they wanted to squeeze me flat! ”) 

In fact it was rather difficult for her to keep 
in her place while she made her speech; the 
two Queens pushed her so, one on each side, 
that they nearly lifted her up into the air. “ I 
rise to return thanks ■” Alice began; and she 


188 THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 

really did rise as she spoke, several inches; but 
she got hold of the edge of the table, and man- 
aged to pull herself down again. 

“ Take care of yourself! ” screamed the White 
Queen, seizing Alice’s hair with both hands. 
“ Something’s going to happen! ” 

And then (as Alice afterward described it) 
all sorts of things happened in a moment. The 
candles all grew up to the ceiling, looking some- 
thing like a bed of rushes with fireworks at the 
top. As to the bottles, they each took a pair 
of plates, which they hastily fitted on as wings, 
and so, with forks for legs, went fluttering about 
in all directions; “and very like birds they 
look,” Alice thought to herself, as well as she 
could in the dreadful confusion that was be- 
ginning. 

At this moment she heard a hoarse laugh at 
her side, and turned to see what was the matter 
with the White Queen, but, instead of 
the Queen, there was the leg of mutton 
sitting in a chair. “Here I am!” cried 
a voice from the soup tureen, and Alice 


QUEEN ALICE. 


189 


turned again, just in time to see the Queen’s 
broad, good-natured face grinning at her for 
a moment over the edge of the tureen, before 
she disappeared into the soup. 

There was not a moment to be lost. Already 
several of the guests were lying down in the 
dishes, and the soup ladle was walking up the 
table toward Alice’s chair, and beckoning to 
her impatiently to get out of its way. 

“ I can’t stand this any longer ! ” she cried, 
as she jumped up and seized the tablecloth with 
both hands ; one good pull, and plates, dishes, 
guests, and candles come crashing down to- 
gether in a heap on the floor. 

“ And as for you ,” she went on, turning 
fiercely upon the Red Queen, whom she con- 
sidered as the cause of all the mischief — but the 
Queen was no longer at her side — she had sud- 
denly dwindled down to the size of a little doll, 
and was now on the table, merrily running 
round and round after her own shawl, which 
was trailing behind her. 

At any other time, Alice would have felt sur- 


190 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


prised at this, but she was far too much excited 
to he surprised at anything now. “As for 
you ” she repeated, catching hold of the little 
creature in the very act of jumping over a 
bottle which had just alighted upon the table, 
“111 shake you into a kitten, that I will! ” 


CHAPTER & 


SHAKING. 

She took her off the table as she spoke, and 
shook her backward and forward with all her 
might. 



The Red Queen made no resistance what- 
ever; only her face grew very small, and her 

191 


192 


THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 


eyes got large and green; and still, as Alice went 
on shaking her, she kept on growing shorter— 
and fatter — and softer — and rounder-* 

and 


CHAPTER XL 


WAKING. 

-and it really was a kitten, after all. 



198 


CHAPTER XIL 

WHICH DREAMED IT? 

46 Your Red Majesty shouldn’t purr so loud,” 
Alice said, rubbing her eyes, and addressing 
the kitten, respectfully, yet with some sever- 
ity. “You woke me out of oh! such a nice 
dream! And you’ve been along with me, 
Kitty — all through the Looking-Glass world. 
Did you know it, dear? ” 

It is a very inconvenient habit of kittens 
(Alice had once made the remark) that, what- 
ever you say to them, they always purr. “ If 
they would only purr for ‘yes/ and mew for 
‘no/ or any rule of that sort,” she had said, 
“so that one could keep up a conversation! 
But how can you talk with a person if they 
always say the same thing? ” 


WHICH DREAMED IT ? 


195 


On this occasion the kitten only purred; 
and it was impossible to guess whether it meant 
“ yes ” or “ no.” 

So Alice hunted among the chessmen on the 
table till she had found the Red Queen; then 
she went down on her knees on the hearthrug, 
and put the kitten and the Queen to look at 
each other. “ Now, Kitty! ” she cried, clap- 
ping her hands triumphantly. “ Confess that 
was what you turned into! ” 

(“ But it wouldn’t look at it,” she said, 
when she was explaining the thing afterward to 
her sister; "it turned away its head, and pre- 
tended not to see it; hut it looked a little 
ashamed of itself, so I think it must have been 
the Red Queen.”) 

“ Sit up a little more stiffly, dear! ” Alice 
cried with a merry laugh. “And courtesy 
while you’re thinking what to — what to purr. 
It saves time, remember! ” And she caught 
it up and gave it one little kiss, “ just in honor 
of its having been a Red Queen.” 

“ Snowdrop, my pet! ” she went on, looking 


196 THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. 

over her shoulder at the White Batten, which 
was still patiently undergoing its toilet, “ when 
will Dinah have finished with your White 
Majesty, I wonder? That must be the reason 
you were so untidy in my dream. Dinah! do 
you know that you’re scrubbing a White Queen? 
Really, it’s most disrespectful of you! 

“ And what did Dinah turn to, I wonder? ” 
she prattled on, as she settled comfortably 
down, with one elbow on the rug, and her chin 
in her hand, to watch the kittens. “ Tell me, 
Dinah, did you turn to Humpty Dumpty? I 
think you did — however, you’d better not men- 
tion it to your friends just yet, for I’m not sure. 

“By the way, Kitty, if only you’d been 
really with me in my dream, there was one 
thing you would have enjoyed — I had such a 
quantity of poetry said to me, all about fishes! 
To-morrow morning you shall have a real treat. 
All the time you’re eating your breakfast, I’ll 
repeat ‘ The Walrus and the Carpenter ’ to you; 
and then you can make believe it’s oysters, 
dear! 


WHICH DREAMED IT? 


197 


“ Now, Kitty, let’s consider who it was that 
dreamed it all. This is a serious question, my 
dear, and you should not go on licking your 
paw like that — as if Dinah hadn’t washed you 
this morning! You see, Kitty, it must have 
been eitheT me or the Red King. He was part 
of my dream, of course — but then I was a part 
of his dream, too! Was it the Red King, Kitty? 
You were his wife, my dear, so you ought to 
know. Oh, Kitty, do help me settle it! I’m 
sure your paw can wait! ” But the provoking 
kitten only began on the other paw, and pre- 
tended it hadn’t heard the question. 

Which do you think it wae? 


198 


THBOUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS, 


A boat, beneath a sunny sky, 
Lingering onward dreamily 
In an evening of July— ■ 

Children three that nestle near. 
Eager eye and willing ear, 

Pleased a simple tale to hear— 

Long has paled that sunny sky { 
Echoes fade and memories die ; 
Autumn frosts have slain July. 

Still she haunts me, phantomwise, 
Alice moving under skies 
Never seen by waking eyes. 

Children yet, the tale to hear. 
Eager eye and willing ear, 
Lovingly shall nestle near. 

In a Wonderland they lie. 
Dreaming as the days go by, 
Dreaming as the summers die. 

Ever drifting down the Stream- 
Lingering in the golden gleam— 
Life, what is it but a dream ? 


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